Dubai: The UAE finished 14th out of 16 teams in the second round of the four stage HSBC Asian Sevens Series in Bangkok, Thailand on Sunday.
The all Emirati set-up lost their group games against Malaysia 26-7 and South Korea 40-0, qualifying them for the bowl quarter-final, which they lost against Laos 21-12.
They won the shield semi-final — their first victory in the current series — against Uzbekistan 21-12, before losing the shield final 31-10 to India.
It follows a 12th-place finish out of 12 teams in Kuala Lumpur last month, where they lost 32-0 to Chinese Taipei and 38-0 to the Philippines in the pool stages before a 15-7 bowl semi-final defeat to Singapore and a 41-0 loss to China in the 11th-place play-off.
UAE RF general secretary Qais Al Dhalai said: “It was a great improvement. If you compare the Thailand Sevens with the Malaysia Sevens, we have scored six tries, while in the first leg we only scored one against Singapore.
“This weekend we won and got to a final. So overall there is great progress in terms of performance and conditioning, and we appeared to be competitive with these Asian teams more than the last time in Malaysia.”