Navy player in Commonwealth Games quarter final
Navy Back-Row forward, Cpl Greg Barden (RM Poole), playing at Hooker, contributed fully as England started their campaign to win Commonwealth Gold in the Rugby Sevens in Delhi, India.
As the pool stages got underway, England faced Sri Lanka and Uganda with a final pool game against Australia. Ben Ryan, England's Head Coach, rotated his squad and Greg played a part in all 3 matches; this included coming on as a replacement to score the final try in the 55 - 0 win over Uganda. Earlier England had eased to a comfortable 59 - 7 win against the Sri Lankans. On this occasion it was the Army's Isoa DamuDamu, who ensured that Service rugby appeared on the score sheet.
During the initial stages, Australia also recorded two wins. The final game of the pool was set to be a classic, that would see the winner gaining an ‘easier' quarter final game on Tuesday. Australia started the better of the 2 teams and was helped even further by Navy man Barden, who after being shown the referee's Yellow Card, was to spend 2 minutes in the sin bin.
With the extra man, Australia opened the scoring with a converted try to go into a 7-0 lead. England refused to be overwhelmed and fought back to gain a 14-21 lead with less than 2 minutes to play. All England needed was to maintain a good defensive structure to secure victory which was the case until Australia found a gap and scored in the final few seconds of the game. However, they failed to make the conversion losing the game 19-21.
As pool winners England now face Samoa in the quarterfinal with the winners of this game facing either South Africa or Kenya.