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‘We scraped through’: Australia suffer ‘frustrating’ quarters exit at Dubai SVNS
By Finn Morton
Australia showed plenty of fight and risked landing a knockout blow against a heavyweight contender at the Dubai SVNS, but South Africa stood tall and held on for a big win in the quarterfinals.
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After losing to Ireland in their opening match of the new-look SVNS Series, the Aussies were left on the brink of elimination after a 31-14 thumbing by Argentina on Saturday afternoon.
In an interview with RugbyPass, captain Nick Malouf insisted the Aussies weren’t lacking in motivation ahead of a must-win clash with Spain later that evening. One more loss would end their campaign.
But a convincing win over Espana saw the Aussies qualify as one of the best-ranked third-placed teams in the men’s draw. Waiting for them was reigning Dubai champions South Africa.
The Blitzboks shot out of the blocks with quick tries to Quewin Nortje and Zain Davids, but a yellow card just before the half made things interesting. Aussie Nathan Lawson scored to make it a one-score game about a minute later.
Australia controlled possession for noticeable periods to start the second term, but a brilliant try to Rosko Specman swung the momentum back in South Africa’s favour. The result was never really in doubt from there.
“South Africa is a world-class team,” Australia sevens ace Josh Turner told RugbyPass. “They executed well off our mistakes, they turned the ball over, finished a lot of their tries.
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“We were there but couldn’t quite get our performance to the level that we’re at.
“To be fair we scraped through yesterday. We played well in the last game yesterday but we didn’t play well in the first two games.
“In the new sevens circuit, third place goes through if you’re the top of the two pools so we scraped through. We still a fight, it doesn’t really matter what happens on day one but South Africa turned up and they were just a little bit better than us.”
After making their way off the field at The Sevens Stadium and away from the watchful eyes of their supporters, the Aussies made their way down the tunnel to regroup.
Banded together as brothers-in-arms, the Australians continued to process the defeat as coach John Manenti spoke passionately to the group.
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While it was clear that the coach was proud of the team’s efforts, this Australian outfit is certainly capable of more – but they’ll have to wait a week to prove that in Cape Town, South Africa.
“Yeah, frustrating but we put the effort in. We train hard, one team is going to win it all this weekend and it’s just not us this weekend,” Turner added.
“(Coach John Manenti) was just saying the effort was there, we just didn’t have the fine detail to finish a few things off.
“They turned us over at the ruck because we knew they’re gonna come hard at the ruck and they turned that over into tries.
“It’s really all who turns up in that game and yesterday we didn’t turn up in the first two, we turned up in the last one. We had glimpses, we probably played 10 good minutes out there and South Africa probably played 14 good minutes.
“One team wins the whole thing, everyone’s great, everyone’s good in the competition so you’ve got to turn up to win it.”
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The writer here ignores the fact that, following on from not taking the penalty kick, the All Blacks did manage to score a try a few minutes later. Not directly from the penalty awarded, but it is speculation to say that had they opted to take the koi they would have won. Even if they kicked it, which was no guarantee, they would still be trailing and would have had to start again at half-way.
Go to commentsI would be surprised if Sales Opoku Fordjour and Northampton’s Tommy Freeman are not in the team, Anthony Watson is also one that could go on the wing. One thing I must say is that the front 3 will get destroyed against a team like South Africa.
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