Day One at Asia-Pacific Womens Sevens Tournament

PNG show their class, Samoa upset by Singapore, and Tonga and the Cook Islands have a baptism of fire in the Asia Pacific Women’s Sevens in Sabbah, Malaysia.

The Papua New Guinea women’s sevens team followed on from their men’s sevens team’s recent success at the Commonwealth Games, by showing the Asia-Pacific Women’s Sevens Tournament in Sabbah, Malaysia that their Union is a force to be reckoned with in this element of the game.  Registering wins over Singapore (24 – 0), India (38 – 0) and Samoa (12 -10), they stormed into the quarter finals with other classy contenders Kazakhstan.

In wet, but perfect sevens conditions, PNG consistency displayed flashy ball skills, and attacking flair to outclass all their pool competition opponents, ending day one of the Tournament in a strong position to further their chances of a Finals berth.  Samoa, were the only team to come close to them on the scoreboard.

Samoa, in comparison, started the Tournament strongly, with a win over India (41-0), however, were edged out by PNG and Singapore in tight encounters.  However, an aggressive Samoa squandered possession and made poor choices at crucial stages of their final two pool matches.

Tonga and the Cooks Islands got a rude introduction to the International women’s sevens.  Both teams could not match the class of Kazakhstan, who are experienced and well drilled team, and a regular on the Asia women’s circuit.  In the last match of the day one, Tonga were too big and strong for the Cooks Islands whose introduction into women’s sevens has been rather sobering.  However, the purpose of this test event is to expose such developing women’s sevens Unions as Tonga, Cooks Islands, India and Singapore to such a level of competition, and the remaining two days of the event will be very rewarding for these teams.