The Scotland 7s team has made it through to the quarter-finals of the Plate competition, where they will face Tonga, having won two of their three Pool F matches at the IRB Sevens World Series event in Hong Kong. Gemmell feels he must buoy his squad ahead of a very important day of competition tomorrow.
“We can’t play by sitting off teams. We can take confidence from the fact that we were seeded third in our pool and we have finished second.
“Yes, we were disappointed with the manner in which we played today, but tomorrow we have the chance to prove what we are capable of. We are into the Plate competition and we just need to front up and play like we know we can.”
Scotland (19) v (17) West Indies The Scots won their final pool game, against Joe Whipple's much improved West Indies side. Scotland conceded an early try before Roddy Grant pulled them back. Calum MacRae added the extras to edge in front.
Riddell crossed for his second try of the day and MacRae was once again accurate with the boot giving Scotland a 14-5 lead at half-time.
Again the Scots gave away an early score, but Jim Thompson broke through to dot down moments later.
A late try in the corner from the West Indies put them in a position to draw the game, but the difficult kick from out wide couldn’t convert the score. Following Scotland’s third and final pool match, he added: “We took the nervousness from the Kenya match into the West Indies game. The preparation for this game was very tough as we only had about and hour and a half to recover from the first game and get ready for this one.
“We were inconsistent about how we went about our business as we would score some good tries when the confidence and concentration was high. However, today’s performance was disappointing given last night’s result over the USA.” Scotland 7s team v West Indies: Scott Forrest (Ayr)* CAPTAIN, Scott Riddell (Blaydon), Roddy Grant (West of Scotland)*, Jamie Hunter (West of Scotland)*, Calum MacRae (Edinburgh), Jim Thompson (Edinburgh), Hefin O’Hare (Glasgow Warriors)
Replacements: Andrew Easson (Edinburgh) for MacRae, Graham Hogg (Hawick)* for Hunter Kenya (31) v (7) Scotland In the first match of the day, Kenya soared to a 17-0 half-time lead. Two converted tries in quick succession after the break killed the game for Scotland, however, they continued to battle hard and scored a late try through Scott Riddell. His score was converted by Graham Hogg. On the first encounter of the day, Scotland 7s coach Stephen Gemmell said: “We are pretty disappointed with that performance. We came out very tentative and lacked real confidence. We didn’t perform to our level in attack or defence so were turned over in the contact too often.” Scotland 7s team v Kenya: Scott Forrest (Ayr)* CAPTAIN, Roddy Grant (West of Scotland)*, Andrew Easson (Edinburgh), Jamie Hunter (West of Scotland)*, Calum MacRae (Edinburgh), Jim Thompson (Edinburgh), Hefin O’Hare (Glasgow Warriors)
Replacements: Scott Riddell (Blaydon) for Grant (blood) for Easson, Graham Hogg (Hawick)* for Hunter, Alex Dunbar (Selkirk)* for Forrest |
