Singapore's win over Samoa as the Talk of the Day

30 October 2010

by Wang Shao Ing

After the first day of competition of the Asia Pacific Women's 7s held in conjunction with the IRB Asian Rugby 7s Series & Borneo 7s, the New Sabah Times hailed Singapore's victory over Samoa as "the talk of the day as the Islander girls sprang a surprise over the more fancied opponents".

After their first pool game loss to Papua New Guinea (28-0), the Singapore National Women's 7s team surprised the home crowd with their spirited performance and took the lead by just a conversion in the first half. The second half was a tense one with one Singapore player being yellow carded for a team offence but Singapore held their ground and were rewarded with a historical win against Samoa (7-5).

With both Samoa and Papua New Guinea beating India by at least seven tries each Singapore needed to pile on the scores against India to end the day ranked second in Group B. Given that the republic's last outing against India at the Asian 7s three months ago was 43-0, it should have been a comfortable win.

However, India had other ideas and employed their tight game well and with Singapore struggling to find their form, India took the game 10-7 throwing Group B into complete disarray with Singapore, India and Samoa having won 1 game each.

At the end of day 1, the Group A pool rankings were 1st: Kazakhstan, 2nd: Tonga, 3rd: Cook Islands & Group B 1st: Papua New Guinea, 2nd: Samoa, 3rd: Singapore & 4th: India.