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How Spain's gritty win over France highlights team's SVNS growth
By Finn Morton reporting from Hong Kong
With an acrobatic finish in the corner, Jeremy Trevithick secured a much-needed 19-12 win for Spain on the opening day of the Hong Kong Sevens. Spain had suffered a shock 19-nil loss to relegation-threatened Kenya earlier in the event but bounced back in a big way.
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Argentina sit in first place on the Men’s SVNS Series standings on 68 league points but Spain are close behind in second with 64. They’ve proven themselves a worthy challenger for the league title during the 2024/25 season, which started with a runners-up finish in Dubai.
But, after placing third in both Perth and Vancouver, Spain’s quest for silverware at the highly-anticipated Cathay/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens took a hit with that loss to Kenya, and they appeared to be in real trouble against reigning SVNS Series winners France later on.
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Spain trailed 7-12 at the break – they were down but by no means out. Anton Legorburu scored the go-ahead points with less than two minutes to play after slicing through a hole in France’s defensive line, but the match wasn’t won until Trevithick’s effort soon after.
With 15 seconds left, Trevithick somehow managed to stay within the field of play to hand Spain their first-ever win at Hong Kong China’s new sevens venue, Kai Tak Stadium. Understandably, the Spaniards were thrilled as they worked off the field and down the tunnel.
“I think it’s that hunger we have since the beginning of this season to win games,” Trevithick told RugbyPass on Friday afternoon.
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“I think those are the games we didn’t win a few years back and now the team’s got that very positive mentality that even though we’re losing we can come back no matter what the score is.”
Spain were never really in the fight against the Kenyans in their other match.
With tries in the third, sixth and ninth minutes, Kenya ran away to a commanding lead that the never once looked like surrendering.
“We had a very tough game against Kenya this morning. We committed a lot of penalties so we didn’t really play our best rugby,” Trevithick reflected.
“Going back to the changeroom, we talked about what we should do in this new game. We knew France is a very, very tough team.
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“One of the things that made us win it is we didn’t commit as many penalties that we did in the first game.
“We didn’t play our best rugby… we knew the Kenyans are really, really tough. They’re fighting not to get relegated – they played really good rugby, it’s not only our own fault.
“We concentrated on what we did bad, we watched videos, and we did it better in that second game.”
Spain have finished in the top three at three of four events so far this season, and are shaping up as a genuine challenger for the top prize at the World Championship event at Los Angeles’s Dignity Health Sports Park on May 3-4.
The home of Major League Soccer outfit LA Galaxy will host the winner-takes-all event, with the likes of Argentina, Fiji and South Africa also firming as some of the favourites for the men’s overall SVNS Series title.
After starting the season with two surprise wins over New Zealand’s All Blacks Sevens in Dubai, Spain has consistently overcome tough opposition at events around the world. Those performances have left them feeling confident, but as Trevithick added, not “too confident.”
“The semi-finals we went to in the last few tournaments gave us quite a lot of confidence [but] we don’t want to be too confident because we know every single team can beat you, as we saw Kenya did.
“We just want to focus on ourselves, focus on the details, and we can always get better. Just keeping that hunger to win every game no matter who the rival is.”
LA’s Dignity Health Sports Park will host the World Championship and SVNS Series playoffs on May 3-4. Don’t miss out – buy your tickets HERE.
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I think when you think of expanding the game you need to look at countries like Spain.
Their improvement in 7s and 15s has been significant. If you can breakthrough in Spain then that is a seismic moment for world rugby. But will world rugby see this? Or continue with its money making agenda for Tier1s via ‘Nations Cups’ and it’s Mickey Mouse ‘World Cup’ which has been hithero a boasting rights tournament for a couple of teams.