Follow-up to the HONG KONG SEVENS rugby tournament

Lots of international sports news this week, especially from across the Pacific - between the Cricket World Cup (won by Australia over New Zealand, with India and South Africa as the other semi-finalists), and the start of the Australian Football League season tomorrow (meaning, 3 a.m. or so for us!), it's been busy! 

We covered the round-robin rounds of the Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament, the crown jewel of the world-tour of international rugby squads, and how the Americans had managed to play above their heads and land a one-seed going into the knock-out round Sunday morning! Alas... Rocky Balboa did not arrive.

The tournament was won by Fiji, defeating New Zealand 33-19 in the Cup Finals Sunday evening. Third place went to South Africa, who came up big against Samoa 26 to 5. The Americans ended in sixth place, falling in the "Plate Finals" to Australia in a close, 21-17 affair. The other two "finals" were from the consolation bracket, where Scotland defeated France 26-5 for the "Bowl", and in the "Shield" bracket, won by Kenya over Japan, 26-7.

As I'm reading the final results, here are the rankings of the teams on this particular weekend...
1. Fiji
2. New Zealand
3. South Africa
4. Samoa
5. Australia
6. United States
7/8. Argentina and England
9. Scotland
10. France
11/12. Canada and Wales
13. Kenya
14. Japan
15/16. Portugal and Belgium.

Beyond that were the twelve "qualifier" nations, all vying for the chance to move up to the grown-ups' table with a good showing. Russia defeated Zimbabwe 22-19 for the qualifiers title (it doesn't get a fancy name like all the top placements, I guess!), with Papau New Guinea and Spain in what amounted to 19th/20th place. Uruguay, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Brazil lost in the quarterfinals, placing them in the theoretical places 21-24, and the four teams who failed to make the knock-out stage were Mexico (routed easily in all three matches), Tunisia (who scored two touchdowns in its three matches combined), Tonga and Guyana, both demolished by Zimbabwe and Spain, but at least Tonga was able to win one game, beating the Guyanese 36-24 for some moral victory points.