News - 2008

Record day at Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens

Top-ranked teams safely through to Cup quarterfinals

Dubai, November 28, 2008 - The Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens reached new heights on Friday as the tournament set a world record for the largest opening day crowd at an IRB Sevens World Series event.

A massive crowd of 50,000 filled the impressive new Emirates facility, 'The Sevens', to witness the finest 16 teams in the world battling it out for top honours in the international competition.

Defending champions New Zealand looked to be picking up where they left last season with a dominant day one performance.

They kicked off the day's action with a 28-7 victory over Wales, then following this up with a 43-7 win over Zimbabwe before finishing with a 31-7 victory over Australia to top Pool A. New Zealand's Tomasi Cama emerged as the top points scorer of the day, with a total of 31.

In Pool B it was 2006 champions South Africa who looked to be a force to be reckoned with after comfortable wins over Scotland (31-10), Arabian Gulf (33-0) and Kenya (31-0). 19-year-old Robert Ebersohn proved to be the player of the day for the South Africans as he lived up to his rising star status.

Action in Pool C saw Samoa having a tough start against France. The scores were level on 7-7 at half time, but two second half tries from the Samoans edged them ahead to finish 19-14 in front. A 33-7 victory over newcomers Georgia and a 19-5 win over Argentina later in the evening confirmed the Samoans' place at the top of the pool.

Meanwhile, England put in a particularly impressive performance in Pool D. They defeated Portugal 31-7 and the USA 24-10, but it was their match against Fiji to finish off the day's play that really grabbed the crowd's attention. The English ran in two tries in the first half to take a 14-0 lead over the reigning World Cup Sevens champions by half time. And they had doubled their score by the final whistle while Fiji could only manage one unconverted try in the second half to finish on the wrong side of a 28-5 scoreline. England's Ollie Phillips finished the day as the second highest points scorer overall with 28.

The English will face Argentina in Saturday's Cup quarterfinal while New Zealand will come up against Kenya. Samoa will play Fiji and South Africa will take on Australia.

Another capacity crowd is expected to watch the scintillating action. The international matches kick off at 9.40am and will continue through to the Cup final which will be played at 8.34pm before the famous Rugby Rock concert brings this hugely successful tournament to a close.

"We are absolutely thrilled that the Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens has broken all sorts of records," said Tournament Director Donal Kilalea. "We had a capacity crowd of over 50,000 people today which made this the largest opening day of any Sevens World Series event in the world to date. And the response we've had from these fans to this wonderful new Emirates venue has been fantastic.

"Everything has come together spectacularly well. One of the massive improvements we have made this year has been the rotating bus system which has been an outstanding success. From 5pm we had buses running on a continuous loop from the venue to five different locations across Dubai and these worked smoothly and efficiently to ensure the thousands of fans were transported safely home.

"It's been a great two days so far and the best is yet to come with another record-breaking day expected tomorrow," added Kilalea.