New Delhi, Oct. 11: The big guns of Rugby Sevens booked their berth in Tuesday’s quarterfinals with thumping wins on the opening day of the event at the 19th Commonwealth Games.
The fancied teams easily won their pool games at the Delhi University stadium in front of sparse crowds in contests that often served up mismatches with minnows such as Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Uganda and India.
Defending champions New Zealand, England, Kenya and South Africa topped their pools maintaining an all-win record. The shock result of the day was Kenya’s 12-10 win over Samoa, one of the favourites to challenge the Kiwis’ reign over CWG gold.
Samoa qualified along with Wales, Australia and Scotland for the quarters as second place finishers in their pools.
“A fourth gold medal is of course at the back of our mind. But Samoa could be serious challengers for us in the absence of Australia,” Sherwin Stowers of New Zealand said.
Hosts India, though, were thoroughly outclassed by clearly much stronger opponents.
It began with a 56-7 hammering at the hands of World Cup champions Wales. Amit Lochab scored India’s only try four minutes into the first half while Wales crossed four times to lead 28-7 at the break.
It got worse as South Africa mauled India 59-0 in the second match. The Sevens-Boks were too quick and strong for their inexperienced opponents, racing to a 33-0 lead at half-time.
Sharks’ call-up Sibusiso Sithole was one of the standout performer against India, scoring a hat-trick of tries in the match. Teammate Renfred Dazel also came up with equal number of tries but failed.
“We were all in awe of the stage we were playing at. The team didn’t even get their hands on the ball in the first half of the match I think,” Indian skipper Nasser Hussain said.
Finally, in their last pool match, India put up a slightly better performance against Tonga before going down 5-38.
Down 0-17 in the second half, Rohan Sethna converted the first try and had a opportunity to score another one before referee ruled a forward pass against India. Another conversion could have pushed India up to 17-12 against the world no 16-ranked opponents.