Hong Kong 7's: 6 - 8 April

[waiopehu oldboy]

Standings after Vancouver:

Pool A: Fiji, New Zealand, Russia, Samoa
Pool B: Kenya, Australia, Spain, Canada
Pool C: South Africa, England, Scotland, South Korea
Pool D: United States, Argentina, Wales, France

Match schedule (times appear to be local):
https://hksevens.com/match-schedule/2018-match-schedule

With the Comm Games coming so soon after HK, I wonder if some of the teams might rest some of their key players & prioritise Gold over (possibly) closing the gap on SA? Conversely, might SA prioritise Gold over maintaining/ extending their Series lead?

EDIT: there's now a story on sport24 indicating SA will have separate squads for HK & CG. It's all a bit vague but you'd have to think there'll be a core group who'll play both.

 

[RebelYell]

Aussies will rotate plenty through too - I'm hearing Con Foley is coming back for this one...

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

HK is also the venue for the Men's & Women's World Series qualifying tournaments:

Men's Pool E: Japan, Uganda, Chile, Georgia
Pool F: PNG, Germany, Hong Kong, Zimbabwe
Pool G: Ireland, Uruguay, Jamaica, Cook Islands

Women's Pool A: South Africa, Kenya, PNG, Mexico
Pool B: Brazil, China, Kazakhstan, Hong Kong
Pool C: Wales, Argentina, Belgium, Poland

Match schedules (times appear to be local):
https://hksevens.com/match-schedule/2018-match-schedule

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

NZ clearly prioritizing Comm Games, several newbies & a caretaker coach in Roger Randle, assisted by Aussie Maclean:

The squad is (* denotes debut)

Jordan Bunce (Waikato)
Tima Faingaanuku* (Tasman)
Rocky Khan (Auckland)
Luke Masirewa (Bay of Plenty)
Etene Nanai-Seturo (Counties Manukau)
Jona Nareki* (Otago)
Tone Ng Shiu (Tasman)
Amanaki Nicole* (Canterbury)
Joe Ravouvou (Auckland)
Salesi Rayasi* (Auckland)
Akuila Rokolisoa* (Counties Manukau)
Dan Schrijvers* (Wellington)
Bailey Simonsson* (Bay of Plenty)

http://www.allblacks.com/News/32212/all-blacks-sevens-team-named-for-hong-kong-sevens

Wasnt Simonsson at some point at least potentially one of yours?

 

[RugbyReg]

So to the aussies.

 

[wamberal]

Blimey. If all the Commonwealth countries follow suit, this will be one of the most interesting Sevens tournaments in living memory.



Painful for us, but still, interesting to watch, because Sevens is far more fun to watch when the teams are not over coached. When I still went to the HK Sevens, I enjoyed the minnows games. Fun, fun, fun.

 

[Braveheart81]

The USA will be hard to beat.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

^^^^^ USA v Argentina final?

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

China have taken out the Women's Qualifier, beating South Africa 12-7 in the final.

In the Men's Qualifier everyone has had two matches, they'll play Round 3 of Pool play & the QF today, SF & Final tomorrow. As you'd expect, recent core team Japan look impressive but so do Ireland (good to see them finally in the 7's mix, I've never understood why they haven't been there all along), Chile who beat Japan after they went a man down, Uruguay & Germany.

Main event also underway with first Round of Pool play, not a good start for Australia, 12-17 v Spain. USA being held to 24-all by France is the only other mildly eye-opening result (Scotland beating England doesn't seem that out of the ordinary these days). Remaining Pool matches today, knockout stages tomorrow.

https://hksevens.com/match-schedule/2018-match-schedule

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

Qualifier SF:

Germany v Chile

Japan v Chile

QF results:

Germany 26-0 Uganda
Chile 24-12 Hong Kong
Japan 26-19 Uruguay
Ireland 38-5 Zimbabwe

Main draw Cup QF:

Fiji v Argentina
South Africa v Spain
USA v NZ
Kenya v Scotland

Challenge QF:

Samoa v France
England v Australia
Wales v Russia
Canada v South Korea

 

[wamberal]

Good to see Spain get to the Cup quarters, even if it was at our expense.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

Germany yet again missing out on qualifying going down to Japan in the final.

 

[wamberal]

Well, we did manage to beat Kenya.