Argentina end Australia's hopes in International Sevens with narrow win

[force4eva]

sevens were great again this year and the cherry on the cake was when dane haylett-petty gave me his socks

[force addict]

i hope you washed them.

[Ecky]

[B]April 05, 2009 Australia were beaten 12-5 by Argentina in the quarter-finals of the International Rugby Sevens tournament in Adelaide.

The South Americans scored two first-half tries and hung on to win against a home side that was unable to gain much useful possession until late in the piece.
AAP

Hung on to win? The Aussies scored their try in the last minute or so. Looked to me that they were completely outplayed and at no stage deserved to win that game.

[KenyaQuin]

in kenya we say......."tutawadinya fainali"...

Not one to be translated.

Well done to Kenya in reaching the finals for the first time. Also well done for jointly creating history with SA in setting up the first all-African final. What a series they've had thus far..SA'n, Kiwi, Fijian, and English scalps in the bag. Excellent effort.

Bit of a shame in the final. I think we can attribute it to nerves because they played nowhere near the confidence they had played earlier in the preliminaries or knock-outs. Lots of loose ball, indecisiveness and general weak defensive patterns.

Congrats too to my good mates Benja (Benjamin Ayimba) and Totti (Felix Ochieng) - Coach and Assistant and both former Kenya Internationals - they've done a superb job with this crop of players and I hope that there are young talented Kenyans looking up and wanting to be a part of the action.

[Burgs]

Congrats to all the winners but yeah, would have liked to see KQ's crew get up.
KQ, do you think the increasing improvement will see a flow on effect for the Kenyan XV? Or see players start getting picked for Provincial Teams in the NH?
Sitting in 39th at the moment with a lot of other teams on similar points, wouldn't be a huge effort to see a climb up the ladder there.

[KenyaQuin]

Burgs, good question/s.

I would have to say I'm doubtful re Kenyan XVs..quite possible you'll see something similar to the Fijian situation. We simply don't have the resources (financial/player pool/administration) to see the XVs team improve significantly.

Don't get me wrong, there is a pretty competitive local XVs competition - Kenya Cup being our first division, and Eric Shirley our second div (both with a long rich history) - but we can't seem to match the forwards of higher ranked teams to be able to offer a decent competitive pack. Without having watched a local game in the past 4-5 years, I can only assume, using our internation XVs results as a basis, that this hasn't changed much.

Having said that, the success of the 7s team could mean that more young Kenyans will develop an interest and attraction to the game..especially seeing that it does offer opportunities of travel if nothing else (much better prospects than the no 1 sport..Soccer). Fifteens will continue to be the focus of rugby in Kenya no matter the success of the 7s team as this is the only way young players can get the exposure needed for selection into the 7s squad.

Also, the other positive I'm seeing today is that these are not your typical players from the traditional rugby schools of Kenya. There is a good mix of varying backgrounds in the makeup of the Kenya Team, which should suggest the spreading through the "classes" of Kenyan society and hopefully means a wider pool is coming into contact with the game.

So while I've mentioned at the start that I'm doubtful this success will automatically translate into success for the XVs team, there are plenty of positives and there is potential to be proven wrong.

As for the players being recruited into NH competitions, hard to say. There's been a few over the years scoring minor contracts in relatively low-middle level competitions around Europe but its not easy for most. In many cases they are probably better off staying home where they are possibly better positioned to get a good job (the "Old Boy Connection") and, as well, are regularly available to train and maintain their position in the team with minimum fuss.