London Scottish on Saturday returned to Twickenham, the scene of many successes in years gone past at the Middlesex Sevens and reached the Plate Final losing 41- 12 to the HFW Wailers. The Wailers are a composite sevens side who are made of up of international sevens players and have a close relationship with Premiership side Newcastle Falcons.
On a bright summers day at Twickenham ideal for fast flowing sevens, London Scottish opened their tournament with a match against Templar 7 RFC. Templar's are one the specialist sevens teams that ply their trade across the summer sevens tournament circuit. The starting lineup for Scottish was; Ben Lonergan, Tom Yellowlees, Oli Brown, Jack Walsh, Dan Mugford, Oli Grove and David Smith. Scottish opened the scoring when Walsh intercepted a pass in the Templar's 22 metre to dash over the line. Smith scored his first try of the tournament midway through the first half when he cut inside after an off load by Brown to score beneath the posts. Scottish however conceded two try's to leave the half time score 12 – 14. A further Templar try pushed the score out to 12 – 19, but Scottish fought back and established parity in the scores, through a Grove try. In an exciting climax, Templar scored the winning try shortly before the final whistle to put Scottish into the Plate competition.
In the opening match of the Plate, Scottish played Durham University and comprehensively defeated them 31 – 5. The Scottish try scorers were Tom Yellowlees, Stuart Peel, Head Coach Simon Amor, Jack Walsh and David Smith with Simon Amor converting 3 of them. In the semi-final Scottish were matched against another of the composite sevens sides Olorun Sharks, who had defeated our fellow exiles London Welsh in the previous round of the Plate. In a ding dong match the scores were exchanged throughout the game with the Sharks going in 7 – 12 ahead at half time. Scottish drew level, but the Sharks scored a breakaway try with one minute remaining on the clock and looked as if they had won the match. Not to be undone, Scottish levelled the scores with the final play of the match, to put the game into sudden death score. Scottish in sudden death immediately took the play to the Sharks line, which saw them driving over out wide to seal their place in the final against the HFW Wailers. The Scottish scorers were a brace from Tom Yellowlees, together with an Oli Grove and a Stuart Peel try.
The first half of the final was an equal affair with both sides scoring two try's a piece. Simon Amor scored a brace of tries, the first being through a quick tap penalty just short of the Wailers line and a breakaway try on the stroke of half time, following a hack through by Dan Mugford. The second half was an anti climax as far Scottish were concerned as the Wailers took control of the match scoring five further try's to close out the match 41 – 12 and a thoroughly deserved victory. The tournament was an excellent run out for a young Scottish sevens squad and the experience of playing at Twickenham will have done them no harm. The performance of the new players augurs well for the forthcoming season.
