HSBC SVNS: Argentina claim back-to-back Perth titles

Defending Perth champions Argentina dominated the final against hosts’ Australia to claim their first tournament win in this year’s HSBC SVNS Series at the end of an exciting weekend of sevens rugby.

Spain claimed bronze with a dramatic third-place play-off against South Africa, while Fiji grabbed the upper hand in a rapidly developing post-Olympic rivalry with France.

Results in Perth mean that Fiji, Argentina and Spain are level on 48 points at the top of the table, heading into the next tournament in Vancouver, in February.

Final: Argentina rain on hosts’ Australia Day parade

Two first-half tries in quick succession set defending tournament champions Argentina – with head coach Santiago Gómez Cora watching from back home – on the way to back-to-back titles, as they dominated Australia to win 41-5 and claim their second Perth final in a row against the same opponents.

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Speedster Marcos Moneta sliced through the defence in the fourth minute to score his 139th international sevens try and – from the restart – Luciano Gonzalez muscled his way through two defenders to extend their lead.

All the action was deep in host territory, and Santiago Alvarez scored on the cusp of halftime to give Los Pumas a convincing lead. 

Gonzalez scored his second almost from kick-off in the second period. A minute later, Matteo Graziano – en route to a second-half hat-trick – picked up a low out-of-the-back offload from Tobias Wade for their fourth.

Hadley Tonga cut the deficit to get the Perth crowd on their feet. But it was only ever a consolation.

Argentina captain Santiago Mare warned that Los Pumas were improving after a slow start to their season. Immediately after the match, he said: “I’m very proud of my team. We are growing, tournament to tournament – we are looking forward to Vancouver.”

Third-place play-off: Spain bag bronze with second-ever win over Blitzboks

After finishing second in Dubai and fourth in Cape Town, Spain won bronze in Perth in a dramatic play-off as they beat South Africa 14-7.

Eduardo Lopez broke the deadlock while South Africa were temporarily reduced to five at the end of the first half in an intense third-place play-off in Perth.

But the Blitzboks survived nearly two minutes with both Ronald Brown and Shilton van Wyk in the sin-bin without further problems. And Selvyn Davids levelled the scores in the second half.

The game looked to be drifting into extra time before Jaime Manteca burst through a hole in the South African defence that had been ripped open by Pol Pla and Jeremy Trevithick to secure Spain’s second-ever win over the Cape Town champions.

Semi-Finals: Aden the golden boy for Australia

“Absolutely unreal!”  Aden Ekanayake’s two-word summary of a crazy Cup semi-final could not be more accurate. The 19-year-old had just scored the golden-point try that sent the Australia Day crowd in Perth into rapture, as their heroes beat South Africa 17-12.

Earlier, Maurice Longbottom had missed a tricky penalty that would have seen them through at the end of normal time, after James Turner and Sidney Harvey cancelled out a Selvyn Davids brace in an exciting, end-to-end encounter.

Argentina’s vast sevens experience told in their last-four outing as they brushed aside Spain 40-5, courtesy of a Marcos Moneta hat-trick and a double for Luciano Gonzalez. It was a statement performance from the defending Perth champions.

Play-offs: Fiji claim upper hand in post-Olympic rivalry with France

Fiji versus France is rapidly turning into a post-Olympic Games sevens rugby rivalry: Fiji avenged their Paris loss in the quarter-finals in Dubai en route to the title in the desert. France won the semi-final between the two sides in Cape Town. 

And, in Perth, Terio Veilawa, Sakiusa Siqila and Joji Nasova all scored as they eased to a 17-5 win to claim handy league points for finishing fifth.

Great Britain and day one giant-killers Uruguay both pulled away from the HSBC SVNS series relegation zone, courtesy of the points they picked up for finishing seventh and eighth in Perth.

Morgan Williams scored twice while Will Homer, Luke Mehson and Matt Davidson got one each as Great Britain picked up eight points for finishing seventh as they beat Uruguay 33-7. The South American side climbed up the log with six points for a deserved eighth-place finish after their opening-day heroics

New Zealand survived a Kenya fight back to claim ninth place with a 19-12 win. 
A positive end to a difficult Perth leg for Ireland, too, as they beat USA 19-17 in the 11th-place final.