Scotland Sevens suffer opening loss to Portugal

Scotland Sevens slumped to an opening-day defeat by Portugal at the sixth leg of the HSBC Sevens World Series in Hong Kong and face England today as they bid to get their tournament back on track.

The Scots were 15-0 down after just four minutes on the clock and were trailing 20-7 at the break. A fightback, capped by a Mark Robertson try under the posts, got them back within a point, but after Russell Weir was sent to the bin, Portugal’s winger Duarte Moreira’s fourth try of the game saw Portugal clinch a 27-21 victory.

Scotland Sevens coach, Stephen Gemmell, said: “We’re disappointed with the manner in which we lost this game. We started very passively and you can’t give any team on this series a start like we gave Portugal. We gave the ball away cheaply. We need to regroup and come back, the pool is still wide-open, and we need to believe we can beat England and Samoa.”

The Scots were due to play England in the early hours of this morning, before taking on Samoa in their last group match at 11.16am (UK time).

England lost 28-7 to Samoa in their opening Pool C game. Wales needed a late score by Cardiff Blues centre Cory Allen to beat Australia 19-14 in their opening Pool A match and New Zealand saw off France 33-12 in Pool B.