Dubai: South Africa showed tremendous fighting spirit to beat England in a thrilling final and clinch their first ever Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens title since 2006 in front of a capacity crowd of 50,000, at the new venue “The Sevens.”

With extra time looking a certainty at 12-12, Gio Aplon broke English hearts with a lung-bursting 70-metre sprint, which produced the match-winning try for Ryno Benjamin, who celebrated with an extravagant belly flop.

Mzwandile Stick fittingly added the conversion to put the seal on a 19-12 success.

South Africa were in the final only because of their captain’s nerveless display of kicking in a dramatic semi-final clash against Fiji.

Stick showed wonderful composure to take that game into extra time with a tricky last-gasp conversion which levelled the scores. And he then landed a 40-metre drop goal penalty to secure a dramatic 10-7 victory over the islanders.

South Africa showed great heart in that game and also in the final against England, who rallied from trailing 12-0 to level a physically punishing clash.

Tom Biggs showed great pace to arc round the outside of the South African defence and score wide on the left, and Micky Young took advantage of the sinbinning of Paul Delport to muscle over from close range for a score he also converted.

England were pressing hard for what would have been the winning try when the ball was turned over and South Africa raced away to kick off the new IRB World Sevens Series in style.

While South Africa began celebrating, it was hard not to feel sorry for England, who were affected by injuries in the final, losing both captain Ollie Phillips and Uche Oduoza in a bruising first half.

They were also without world record points scorer Ben Gollings, but had earlier still defeated Argentina in the quarter-finals and then world champions New Zealand as they maintained their momentum from the first day.

Ben Ryan’s side sprinted out of the blocks to take a 21-point lead at the break thanks to scores from Rob Vickerman, Ollie Phillips and Josua Drauniniu with Phillips adding three conversions that proved to be priceless in the final conclusion.

Meanwhile. Samoa made up for going out in the trophy quarter-finals to Fiji by overcoming Kenya 12-7 in the plate final.

Results

Cup final
South Africa 19 England 12

Cup semi finals
England 21New Zealand 19

South Africa 10 Fiji 7

Cup quarter-finals
New Zealand 21 Kenya 17
England 15 Argentina 5
Fiji 12 Samoa 7
South Africa 19 Australia 0

Plate semi-finals
Kenya 26 Argentina 24
Samoa 17 Australia 14

Plate final
Samoa 12 Kenya 7

Bowl quarter-finals
Wales 26 Arabian Gulf 7
Portugal 19 Georgia 7
France 22 United States 12
Zimbabwe 19 Scotland 5

Bowl semi-finals
Portugal 24 Wales 0
France 17 Zimbabwe 12

Bowl final
Portugal 24 France 0

Shield semi-finals
Arabian Gulf 22 Georgia 12
United States 17 Scotland 14

Shield final
United States 31 Arabian Gulf 7

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 29th, 2008 at 8:10 pm and is filed under Fijian News, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.