England take the Cup in Tokyo
TOKYO (Apr 05) – South Africa and England played out the Cup Final at the HSBC Sevens World Series, TOKYO SEVENS 2015 on Sunday with England hanging on at the end to win 21-14 and collect their first Cup title since Wellington in 2013.
In the final, with England on the attack, big man Charlie Hayter barged his way through the South African defence for the first points in the final, but the Blitzboks struck back with Justin Geduld collecting a deft kick pass to score the try and tie the scores at 7-all, the eventual halftime score.
England started the final half of the tournament on the front foot when Tom Mitchell won the race to the ball on a kick through to open up a 14-7 lead. Soon after, South Africa were attacking the England goal line but a penalty against them saw forward Phil Burgess tap and run the length of the field to dot down and push the score out to 21-7. The Sevens prowess of Cecil Afrika came to the fore as he ran in the next try to make it 21-14, but England then did enough to hang on and take the Cup title.
England head coach Simon Amor said after the win, “The boys worked so hard for this and they thoroughly deserve it. One of our key goals this year was to win a tournament and now we’ve achieved that.”
England captain Tom Mitchell said, “I’m unbelievably pleased. It was a huge effort for this group and I’m so pleased we could deliver. South Africa is a fantastic team and they’ve shown that all tournament, so to beat them in the final was great.”
Meanwhile, Fiji came in third after they beat Canada 21-19 in the Third Place Play-off, but it took a come-from-behind try after the bell for the Fijians to do it.
Other winners in Tokyo included New Zealand who beat Scotland 21-14 in the Plate Final after Dylan Collier scored the winning try after the bell, the USA who beat Australia 17-12 in the Bowl Final and Portugal who beat Argentina 12-7 in the Shield Final.
For Japan, it was their best tournament of the season to date with a draw with Argentina, a win over Samoa and a loss to France giving the hosts second place in Pool D and a spot in a Cup Quarterfinal for the first time since 2000. Japan came up against Sevens powerhouse Fiji in their Cup quarter clash with the islanders running out 41-5 winners. The loss to Fiji put Japan into the Plate Semi-finals against Scotland with the Scots putting an end to the Japan campaign with a 14-5 win.
After seven of nine rounds, Japan are still the lowest ranked side of the fifteen core teams, but the 10 points they picked up in Tokyo took their tally to 17 points, closing the gap on fourteenth-placed Portugal on 25 points who collected 3 points for winning the Shield final.
South Africa keep their lead at the head of the overall standings with 129 points from Fiji on 125 points, New Zealand on 120 points and England on 100 points.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT HSBC SEVENS, TOKYO 2015
http://www.worldrugby.org/sevens-series/news/65324
