Dubai: Fiji coach Ben Ryan believes his side can claim their second Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens title on Saturday after they comfortably topped Pool A with three straight wins on Friday.
The HSBC Sevens World Series defending champions beat Canada 63-14, Japan 21-17 and Argentina 28-0 to progress to the quarterfinals where they will now play second in Pool D Australia.
“We scored 16 tries today and every single one was converted, which is awesome,” said Ryan. “We scored a lot of points and our defence on the whole was OK, with a couple of soft tries conceded.
“We haven’t fully revealed our hand as yet. We haven’t played at full throttle and we’re going to need to tomorrow.
“Australia knocked us over here last year, so that certainly would be a nice game to play in tomorrow morning.
“We’re three games away from winning the Dubai Sevens and if we play to our potential, I believe we’ll win the tournament tomorrow,” he added.
Elsewhere, in Pool A, Argentina went through in second with wins over Japan 31-19 and Canada 19-14, while Japan beat Canada 21-7 to come third. Argentina will now play winners of Pool D England in the quarterfinal.
Dubai defending champions South Africa topped Pool B with wins over Samoa 33-7, Russia 45-0 and Scotland 26-12. Neil Powell’s side will now play the USA in the quarterfinals.
“It’s been a little bit of a mixed bag,” said Powell. “We had some moments that were not up to standard and gave too many points away with our structures, but overall, it was a good day.
“It’s always good to have one of those games [against Scotland] in a tournament. We will learn from things from that game and mistakes we made. That will do us well for the quarterfinal tomorrow.”
Samoa finished second in Pool B with wins over Scotland 17-12 and Russia 19-10, and will now face winners of Pool C New Zealand in the last eight.
Record 12-time World Series winners and six-time Dubai champions New Zealand topped Pool C with victories over France 21-14 and Portugal 47-5, but suffered surprise defeat to the USA 14-12, which enabled the USA to leapfrog France for second in the group.
The USA had otherwise beaten Portugal 45-14 and lost 26-21 to France, but progressed on point difference after France had earlier beaten Portugal 35-7.
Meanwhile, England topped Pool D with victories over Wales 26-5, Kenya 19-12 and Australia 21-5. Australia finished second due to that defeat after earlier seeing off Kenya 14-12 and Wales 43-0.
