SCOTLAND'S problems continued yesterday at the Emirates Airline Dubai Sevens, with defeat by USA in the semi-final of the fourth-level Shield competition bringing the Scots' progress to a halt.
The Scots had started the day with high hopes against Zimbabwe in the Bowl quarter-final but in the hot conditions Scotland's error-flavoured performance made it easy for the pacey southern Africans to exploit space.
Scotland trailed by just 5-0
but a careless pass gifted the Zimbabweans sevens points. Andrew Easson pulled a score back for Scotland but another loose pass gave the Africans a third score and a 19-5 victory.
"The accuracy of our passing even when we weren't under pressure was disappointing, and our one-on-one tackling was poor," said Scotland coach Stephen Gemmell. "The statistics showed only 60% success. That's simply not good enough and means that we're conceding more tries than we need.
"We gave away the ball too cheaply and inevitably ended up chasing the game. In sevens it's all about having the ball."
Against USA, Scotland were on equal terms at the interval with the scoreline at 7-7, Scotland having scored through Rory Hutton from a break by Tom Bury. Then a try by Easson put Scotland 14-7 ahead but weak tackling gave USA's Chris Wyles two late tries for a 19-14 win.
There is no disguising that this has been a difficult tournament for Scotland, whose reshaped squad has struggled to emulate the performances of last season's side that qualified for Cup quarter-finals in six of the eight IRB World Series tournaments.
The shock of the new, however, has been experienced. Now the reshaped Scots squad must find confidence for next weekend's IRB World Series tournament in George, South Africa. "It doesn't get any easier," said Gemmell. Quite so.
In the final South Africa added yet another success to their list of victories this month by beating England 19-12 in a quality final at Dubai. The Boks had to ride out a second half sin-binning before scoring the winning try on the stroke of half time. Samoa won the Plate final beating Kenya in the final while Portugal and USA were the Bowl and Shield winners respectively
Scotland squad: Roddy Grant (West of Scotland, capt), Struan Dewar (Heriot's), Colin Shaw (Glasgow Warriors), Fraser McKenzie (Edinburgh), Chris Fusaro (Heriot's), Ashleah McCulloch (Aberdeen Grammar Rugby), Tom Bury (Boroughmuir), Rory Hutton (Hawick), Andrew Easson (Edinburgh), Graham Hogg (Hawick), Grant Anderson (Ayr), Chris Kinloch (Glasgow Warriors).
The full article contains 427 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
