Sevens lose to Tonga in Hong Kong

The Welsh side never attained any fluency against the hard-hitting Tongans and in the end were beaten by the Pacific Islanders, who ran in five tries to Wales’s one.

“It was a tough learning curve for some of the young players,” said Wales Sevens Coach Gareth Baber, standing in for Dai Rees. “We were simply not aggressive enough in the contact area, they worked harder than us and fully deserved their win.”

Wales were still in the match at half-time with the score at 14-0 to Tonga from two tries by Teuimull Kaufusi. Then when Kaufusi completed his hat-trick to give his side a 19-0 advantage, Wales were in an almost hopeless position.

A fourth try, this time by Vungakoto Lilo, and the conversion made it 26-0 for Tonga but Wales finally responded with a great run by substitute Jamie Roberts and the finish by Wayne Evans, who converted his own try. Tonga confirmed their superiority with a converted try by Lilo to round off an impressive performance. Wales face Chinese Taipei in their opening match on Saturday and will need to regroup to save their series.

“We’re still in the tournament but we want to have a good look at ourselves before playing Sri Lanka,” added Baber. After taking on Chinese Taipei Wales play South Africa, knowing that they must perform a damage limitation exercise on the Springboks to give themselves a chance to compete in the Plate competition on Sunday.

Wales: W Evans, T Selley, R Mustoe, R Shellard, J Edwards, L Beach, R McAtee

Substitutes used: J Roberts, R McCusker