Australia starts Hong Kong 7s with a win
Australia has defeated Samoa 22-19 in the opening game of the 2017 Hong Kong Sevens, to put them in a strong position in Pool A.
It was a special occasion for Australian veteran Ed Jenkins, who earned his 50th Sevens cap when he ran out against Samoa in Hong Kong.
Australia will play England and South Korea on day two of the tournament tomorrow, as they push to secure progression through to the Quarter Finals.
Qantas Australian Men’s Sevens Head Coach, Andy Friend said: “It was a really important match for us and a really dangerous match for us.
“The Pool we are in, we knew that we have an opportunity there with a qualifying team in our Pool.
“We knew Samoa would come out strong and I think we played very well to beat them.
“What’s important is that we don’t take South Korea lightly. We need to respect them and come out and play our brand of football and build on our performance. We will look at England after that.”
Australia 22 defeated Samoa 19
Australia started the match strongly with a turnover from John Porch allowing Henry Hutchison to get his hands on the ball and score in the corner to give the Aussie 7s a 5-0 lead. Samoa ran the ball at the Australian line with aggression and countered with a quick try of their own to take the lead 5-7. The Aussie 7s were patient and capitalised on some space out wide to put Boyd Killingworth over in the corner and take a 10-7 lead at the break.
Henry Hutchison was the beneficiary of a brilliant cutout pass from Porch early in the second half and scored in the corner to extend the lead to 15-7. Porch backed it up with a try of his own to take the game away from Samoa with under two minutes to play.
With the match all but gone, Samoa put on two quick tries to close the gap to 22-19 on the stroke of full-time.
Australia will play South Korea at 1.18pm AEST and England at 5.40pm AEST tomorrow in the battle to secure progression from Pool A.
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