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Fiji Light Up the Hong Kong Sevens
Hong Kong Sevens - March 27-29
A team of little-known players from Fiji earned the island nation its 12th Hong Kong Sevens title yesterday, beating South Africa 26-24 in a final that was a fitting culmination to a weekend of surprise results and thrilling rugby.
Despite Fiji’s passion for Sevens rugby and its historic success in this form of the game, coach Iliesa Tanivula’s men were not considered to be among the favourites going in to the Cathay Pacific / Credit Suisse Hong Kong Sevens. That honour belonged to last year’s winner, New Zealand, last year’s losing finalist, South Africa, and England. Wales, winners of the Rugby World Cup Sevens in March, had arrived without many of their leading players and were not fancied as a result.
The other powers of sevens rugby prospered on Friday and Saturday as they swept aside the lesser rugby sevens teams in their pools while Fiji struggled to find form. Their performances in a 33-0 victory over Chinese Taipei, a 12-12 draw with Samoa and a hard-earned 26-17 win over Canada lacked the flair for which Fiji is famous and were dogged by errors.
But Fiji side-stepped any of the kind of upsets that many will remember as the defining feature of this tournament. Hong Kong delighted their boisterous home crowd by defeating eventual Bowl and Plate winners Portugal and Tonga on Saturday. Sadly, Hong Kong could not maintain their magical run during the knockout stages on Sunday, succumbing 26-5 to Canada.
If Hong Kong were Saturday’s giant-killers, then Kenya captured the imagination of all spectators on Sunday with an unforgettable, emotional 10-7 victory over New Zealand, who had previously been going about their business with an air of ominous intent.
The irrepressible Kenyans met their match in the semi-finals, though, when they encountered a Fiji side that had made its intentions clear with a hard-fought 12-10 win over England in their quarter-final. Fiji were looking much more like the great sides of previous years – combative, cohesive and lethally effective. South Africa were in equally good form, cruising past Australia 24-10 and Samoa 29-3 on their way to a match-up in the final with Fiji.
After Elvis had appeared from within a giant jukebox to serenade the crowd, the two teams re-emerged to do battle for the most coveted prize in the IRB World Sevens Series – victory in Hong Kong and the 30 points it brings to the winners of this 24-team tournament. Led by Captain and Player of the Tournament Emosi Vucago, the Fijians established a 19 point lead in the first half and put themselves out of reach in spite of two second-half sin-binnings. The South Africans never gave up the chase, though, and had Captain Mzwandile Stick’s difficult last-second conversion gone over, the two teams would have gone on to a ‘sudden-death’ stage.
Fiji’s victory was greeted by elated scenes in Hong Kong and Suva, Fiji alike. Coach Tanivula had faced the difficult task of rebuilding the Fijian public’s love affair with its team after the dismissal of sevens legend Waisale Serevi as coach last month and a poor performance at the World Cup. He had responded by bringing a new team of largely unknown Fiji-based players to Hong Kong. "There have been some problems back home and this is probably one of the things that gets us together as a nation and I'm sure they're celebrating now," said Tanivula.
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