SINGAPORE – Olympic champions Fiji, Australia and New Zealand cleared their pool matches with ease, racking up perfect scores of three wins out of three matches to advance to Sunday’s knockout stages of the HSBC Singapore Rugby Sevens.
Defending Series champion Fiji, who also won last weekend’s Hong Kong Sevens, finished top of Pool A after recording comfortable wins over Hong Kong (40-0), Russia (38-7) and Canada (35-7).
England suffered a 14-24 loss to France in their opening match but bounced back with a win over Japan (40-10) and a massive 17-12 triumph over South Africa (17-12) to top Pool B.
Meanwhile, Australia claimed top spot in Pool C albeit with failry narrow wins over Samoa (19-12), Kenya (29-7) and Argentina (19-7), while New Zealand suffered a scare in its first Pool D game, squeaking past Scotland 22-21 before recovering to record comfortable wins over Wales (36-14) and the United States (21-14).
The first day of action drew close to 30,000 fans.
Fans came dressed in all sorts of costumes and there were plenty of singing and dancing in the stands whenever the Dance Cam or the Muscle Cam was on the stadium jumbotron.
Fans also performed the Kallang Wave and passed huge giant inflatable rugby balls around the stadium.
Sunday’s quarter-final fixtures will see Fiji taking on the United States and Australia facing Series leader South Africa.
New Zealand are up against Canada, while England will meet defending champion Kenya.
Former Fiji coach Ben Ryan is tipping either Fiji or South Africa to win the Singapore crown although he also thinks that Fiji might still be recovering from its Hong Kong Sevens triumph.
He told TODAY: “Well, it’s Fiji for me but any moment, teams can fall over.
“They had such a massive victory in Hong Kong, which was such a massive relief for them but sometimes that emotional energy drains you more than physically.
“Tomorrow’s just a bit too tough for them and I think they know that. It’s almost a natural thing.
“South Africa know that if they win, they can pretty much wrap up the overall world title. I think they are going to be very good.
“So I think South Africa or Fiji will win this, with the United States as my dark horse.”
The second day of the Singapore Rugby 7s will include the Schools Under-14 final between arch-rivals Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) and St. Andrew’s Secondary.
Tickets can be purchased online at www.singapore7s.sg
