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Argentina and Germany take early advantage in SVNS 2
By Joe Harvey
Argentina and Germany grabbed gold in Nairobi as all 12 teams started their HSBC SVNS 2 campaigns over the weekend.
All teams will travel to Montevideo and São Paulo next month as they aim to claim a spot at the HSBC SVNS World Championship later this season.
Last month in Dubai, Argentina were runners-up to South Africa in the HSBC SVNS 3 women’s competition. Despite losing their final match of the tournament to South Africa, Las Yaguaretés got the full 20 point haul thanks to wins against China, Spain, Brazil and Kenya.
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Sofia Gonzalez was named Women’s Player of the Tournament in Kenya.
“We’ve had a really long time to get ready for this (tournament),” she said.
“We’ve been training for three years with our new staff, and everyone has put in a lot of work, physically and mentally.
“We’ve been doing a lot of hard work, so we’re really happy with the outcome. (This is) not a coincidence — it’s because of everything that we’ve been doing.
“So now, we’ll go back home and take some time off to recover, because it’s been a really hard weekend — even though we’ve had a lot of fun and it’s been great rugby, it’s also been really hard on our bodies.
“So taking the time to recover well and then, in terms of Montevideo, we will obviously look back on our games. Even if we placed first, we still have a lot to work on and try to cut out our mistakes.
“We’ll focus on that and hopefully we will have the same outcome in Montevideo. We will for sure be going for that first place again.”
Spain claimed third at Nyayo National Stadium, followed closely by China, Kenya and Brazil.
In the men’s competition, Germany were surprise champions as they pipped Kenya and the USA to top spot.
A barnstorming Day 2 in Nairobi saw the Wolfpack beat the USA and Belgium. With only Kenya the only side capable of overtaking them on paper, they had the Eagles to thank as Zack Test’s team beat the host nation 21-5 in the final clash of the day.
The USA took second overall for the weekend, Kenya claimed third, Uruguay were fourth, Belgium were fifth and Canada finished winless across two days of action.
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