Scotland Sevens captain Scott Wight believes contributions from the entire squad were the key to their remarkable triumph in the London leg of the World Sevens Series at Twickenham Stadium.
The Scots had never even reached the Cup final at a World Seven Series event, let alone lifted the trophy, but after beating England in the quarter-finals and USA in the semis, South Africa were downed 27-26 in a thrilling final.
Scotland trailed the Blitzbokke 26-15 with barely a minute to play but two moments of magic from Dougie Fife saw them complete the most unlikely of comebacks in the final event of the World Seven Series season.
Scotland were 12th in the overall standings heading into the weekend, with South Africa second, yet with skipper Wight leading from the front and consistent brilliance from the likes of Fife, Mark Robertson, Damien Hoyland and Scott Riddell, they repeatedly defied the odds.
And while some performances at tournaments this season haven’t been up to the standard he would have liked, Wight – who scored a try from a driving maul in the final – couldn’t fault the display from his troops at Twickenham.
“I feel ecstatic. It probably hasn’t sunk in properly at the moment,” said Wight. “We were a long way behind in the final but the boys stuck on task and got the ball over the line at the end.
“The driving maul was something we had looked at and worked on to have a little trick play up our sleeves.
“We worked on it prior to going out to Paris and that’s probably the only opportunity we had to run it over the two weeks, and thankfully I’ve picked up a try.
“Credit to the boys we have in the squad, we’ve had a real impact off the bench this week.
“We started most of the games well but the bench have been fantastic over the last two days and it’s a massive squad effort.
“It’s been pretty frustrating with the way we’ve been performing at times, but we just waited for that tournament to put six lots of 14 minutes together and we’ve not been able to do that.
“We had pictures up around the team room and we said that we had to believe in one another. It’s unbelievable.”
Scotland finished tenth in the overall season standings with England – who lost in the plate semi-finals to New Zealand – eighth and Twickenham bowl winners Wales 12th.
England beat overall Series winners Fiji on Saturday and that performance, in addition to Scotland and Wales picking up silverware on Sunday, means that optimism for Team GB, with Rio 2016 a little over two months away, is high.
Sportsbeat 2016