March 29, 2008

Nail-biting finish for England

Samoa 5 - 7 England

England finished day two of the Cathay Pacific/Credit Suisse Hong Kong Sevens top of their group after a nail-biting match with Samoa.

England were behind until the sixth minute of the second half when Simon Hunt (Ebbw Vale) battled his way through the Samoan defence line to score a game saving try in the right corner.

Samoa came back on the full time buzzer running over the tryline to score but were pulled into touch by John Brake (Northampton Saints) and Noah Cato (Saracens), leaving England with the victory.

Said Coach Ben Ryan, “It’s a big result, we have to calm down as we have to face them again tomorrow and tonight might come back to haunt us. Samoa are a very good side, Sevens is always on a knife edge and we were the right side of that edge tonight.

We stuck hard at our defence today, we had a bit of backs against the wall stuff and we decided as a group when we were home in England we were going to make sure that we made effort and put our bodies on the line.

Quarter final of Hong Kong was our number one goal but we could play one game tomorrow we could play three, we need to remember that we have been previously beaten by the Cook Islands, Kenya we have lost plenty of games so we must keep focused.

England will now face Samoa again tomorrow (Sunday) in the Cup quarter final at 1.47pm.

England: Chris Mayor (Sale Sharks), John Brake (Northampton Saints), Anthony Elliott (Bristol Rugby),
Andy Vilk (captain, Sale Sharks), Kevin Barrett (Exeter Chiefs), Ben Gollings (Sunnybank),Simon Hunt (Ebbw Vale).

Replacements: Noah Cato (Saracens), Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers), Matt Cox (Worcester Warriors).

England scorers: Simon Hunt (t), Ben Gollings (c).

Ends