Mumbai: Top seeds Hong Kong and China finished at the top of their respective pools after day one of the Goa Sevens today. Hong Kong finished with 89 points in its three pool matches, conceding just 14, while China posted 100 points against 17 allowed.
Hong Kong whitewashed Iran in its first match 41-0 before beating Singapore 26-7 and UAE 22-7 to complete its unbeaten opening run. Hong Kong’s performance is notable by the fact that six of the 12-man squad are earning their first caps on the HSBC Asian Sevens Series in Goa, as many of the squad that finished second in this year’s HSBC Asian Sevens Series are competing at the Noosa Sevens in Australia.
China posted a 50-nil win over UAE Shaheen, a development squad of Asian and Olympic Games qualified Emirati players, before handing hosts India its second loss of the day 24-5 and edging Kazakhstan 26-12 after being level at 12 points apiece at the half.
With the top spot in Pool B at stake, China’s player-coach Zhang Zhiqang, a veteran of many HSBC World Sevens Series tournaments entered the fray in the second half, immediately contributing on two tries that pushed China ahead for good at 26-12.
Hong Kong will face UAE Shaheen in its quarter final tomorrow at 10:02 am local time while China meet Singapore in quarter final 3 (10:24am). Kazakhstan, runners-up in Pool B will open tomorrow’s action against Iran at 09:30. UAE, who finished as the runners-up in Pool A, will take on India tomorrow in quarter final 4 at 10:46.
Hong Kong coach Alex Gibbs commented on today’s performance saying, “I’m very pleased. We achieved what we set out to do today and I was happy with the way we controlled our games, especially as we have six new caps in the squad as we also have a team competing in Australia this weekend.”
“The squad we have in Goa is a mix of both experienced players trying to qualify for the Hong Kong Sevens or returning from injury and some new players coming through from our Under 20s team.”
“A year ago we wouldn’t have been able to play two tournaments on the same weekend. The depth we have developed is hugely important for us as we want to play in more HSBC
World Sevens Series events going forward and to be successful at that level, depth is crucial,” added Gibbs.
UAE is also in the midst of selection for the squad that is going to represent the UAE at their home HSBC World Sevens Series event in Dubai in December of this year. Blooding a few new players in Goa, UAE edged past Singapore 14-7 before beating Iran more convincingly, 42-5. Everything was at stake in today’s final match against Hong Kong but the UAE lost 22-7 to fall to second in Pool A.
As important as their preparation for the Dubai Sevens in a few weeks time is the performance for the first time in an international tournament of the UAE Shaheen. UAE Shaheen, Arabic for “falcons”, is a development side composed entirely of Asian Games and Olympic qualified local Emirati players. The side is garnering crucial experience in Goa alongside the national sevens team. While the results didn’t pan out the way the Shaheen had hoped, they lost all of their matches this afternoon, the experience gained will be invaluable in the long run.
Kazakhstan, who finished 7th in the HSBC Asian Sevens Series rankings in 2011, were in the mix throughout the day and pushed China to the limits before fading in the second half.
Kazakh captain Ildar Abdrazakov chalked up the loss to a few unforced errors but conceded that China were the better team today, saying, “The tactics we used against China this afternoon were wrong but I think we may meet them again later in the tournament and after this afternoon’s experience I think we could definitely beat them. Every game we are playing at this level we are improving and I expect for us to be better tomorrow.”
“Rugby Sevens now being an Olympic sport has really helped grow the game back in Kazakhstan and we are now starting to see the benefits of being a core team on the HSBC Asian Sevens Series. We are also integrating more and more new players into the squad so no matter what the results are this weekend, our performance on the series has been a great success.”
Iran, on their HSBC Asian Sevens Series debut, turned in the surprise result today beating higher-seeded Singapore, also on its 2011 Series debut, 28-19 to finish as the third seed in Pool B.
Iran captain Pedram Baniamerian commented on the result saying, “Our team has been selected from our national sevens championships in October and we have only been together for 15 days so we are very happy with the win against Singapore who have a lot of experience at sevens. I think the experience of actually playing together as a team as opposed to training will prepare us well for tomorrow’s match against Kazakhstan.”
Hosts India meanwhile were left ruing a slow start in Goa. India captain Rohan Sethna commented on the team’s performance saying, “I feel like we should have beaten Kazakhstan in our opening match today but we were still asleep in that game. We need to start games better and I think it showed today when we played Shaheen in the last match. We got a few tries in early and that helped us establish our form. Against Kazakhstan and China we just left it too late and didn't really hit our stride.”
“Offensively I am happy with where we are but we need to eliminate some of our mistakes on defence. The support here in Goa has been great and I am sure we will put on a better performance tomorrow to reward the supporters,” added Sethna.
Rugby India, the organizing body of the Goa Sevens, has made the development of local rugby a focus for the Goa Sevens.
Today, over 600 children were in attendance at the competition from the Don Bosco School. Forty youth from the Ezekiel Methodist School took part in a special rugby clinic as part of the HSBC ARFU Coaching Tour 2011 with more youth clinics slated for this afternoon and tomorrow’s tournament action.
Yesterday, Rugby India and the Asian Rugby Football Union also conducted a youth rugby clinic for 30 special needs kids from the Tara Trust charity in Goa. The HSBC ARFU Coaching Tour has now visited over 10 markets in Asia introducing the game to over 4,000 youth across the continent in 2011 alone.