Scotland 7s have it all to do

Scotland 7s will finish 13th in the 2012/13 HSBC Sevens World Series after recording only one win on day one of the Emirates Airline Glasgow 7s, against Portugal (26-5). The hosts had to qualify for the Cup quarter-final at their home tournament and match or better the performances of the USA to ensure they did not drop into the relegation play-off next weekend at Twickenham.However, losing out to England (29-7) in their second match of the day proved detrimental before closing day one to circuit leaders and Glasgow 7s defending champions New Zealand. They lost this match 28-0.By contrast, USA won two of their three matches and qualified for the Cup tier as Scotland moved into the Bowl where they’ll play Spain at 11.36am tomorrow.Scotland 7s head coach, Stephen Gemmell, said: “Overall we’re hugely disappointed today because we didn’t get out of our group and we didn’t meet our aim of reaching the Cup quarter-finals.”All credit to the USA who came out and did what they needed to do.”Tomorrow we owe ourselves and the Glasgow crowd a performance. We have Spain at 11.36am and we must now look ahead to that match.”We played better in our last match, but we were still not good enough so we must keep improving tomorrow.”All is not lost yet for Scotland 7s and their core status in the World Series though. Next week they will play in an eight-team play-off tournament at Twickenham with Portugal, Spain, Hong Kong, Georgia, Tonga, Zimbabwe and Russia.Scotland 7s will be required to finish in the top three of that tournament if they are to secure their core status. On day one the teams will play in two groups after being seeded one to eight and play each other once in their group. On day two they will be seeded again depending on where they finish in the group and all will enter a quarter-final.After the re-seeding team one will play team eight, team two will play team seven and so on. The winners will go into a semi-final with the two winners of the semi guaranteeing their place in next year’s HSBC Sevens World Series. The two losers of the semis will then play a third-placed play-off with the winner this match earning core team status.Scotland 7s squad for the Emirates Airline Glasgow 7s at Scotstoun Stadium on Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 May: Chris Dean (Scotland 7s EDP), Struan Dewar (Scotland 7s), Michael Fedo (Scotland 7s), Alex Glashan (Scotland 7s EDP), Colin Gregor (captain) (Scotland 7s), John Houston (Scotland 7s), Lee Jones (Edinburgh Rugby), Michael Maltman (Scotland 7s), Byron McGuigan (Glasgow Warriors), Scott Riddell (Scotland 7s), Colin Shaw (Scotland 7s) and Andrew Turnbull (Scotland 7s).