HSBC Sevens 2017/18

First topic message reminder :

Dubai up first.

Womens Series kicked off yesterday, while the Mens starts today.

England Women had a tough day, losing to Australia and Russia. They have a quarterfinal against Australia now, which will be a hard match to win.

England & Scotland Men are in a pool together with Spain & France. Wales have Australia, Fiji and Russia.

https://www.worldrugby.org/sevens-series

South Africa have spain in their QF, which you'd expect them to win. A loss would hand the title to Fiji. If they do win, then the next team up will be New Zealand, which won't be an easy match.

Ireland will be the next team to face Fiji. If they get a win, then it woud be enough for the Blitzbokke to get to the final to win the overall title.

Spain just had a conversion chance to beat South Africa at full-time, but it missed. It's 10-10 and extra time now.

South Africa finally prevailed, but it took them nearly a whole half of extra time to get the score, which they may pay for later. Still, their title hopes are still alive, even if Spain looked like ending them at one stage.

Fiji beat Ireland, so South Africa now need to win the Paris leg to take the overall title. NZ stand in their way in the semi. The final will be against England or Canada.

So England opened up the title race by beating Fiji, and now they are the team standing between South Africa and the title. It's the first time England have reached a final this season.

England stopped Fiji claiming the title, and now haven't managed to tame South Africa, which hands the Blitzbokke the overall title.

A lot of rugby pundits who said Fiji were head and shoulders above all other teams (having not paid attention to the start of the season) will now turn on a sixpence, and laud South Africa's consistency (which has actually been inconsistent).

Odd season, in many ways. Fiji were sublime at times. Coming into this last round, however, their error count was very high. Arguably, that's the trade-off you get, when playing such exciting rugby.

Incidentally, England finished 5th in the overall standings, just a point behind Australia in 4th. That's a lot better than we looked like managing, at one point in the season.

If we have our best squad available, we could do yet something at the World cup in July. Still, as mentioned before, it's a worry that our top players are all in their late twenties or early thirties.