New Zealand’s Sonny Bill Williams has been ruled out of the rest of the Olympic rugby sevens competition after partially rupturing an Achilles tendon.
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Sonny Bill Williams has been replaced by Sione Molia, one of the star players who have come into the New Zealand team during this World Series past.
Teruya Goto and Kameli Soejima scored the tries for Japan and, crucially, Lemeki and Katsuyuki Sakai slotted the conversions.
A thrilling opening round of fixtures also saw a highly-fancied United States team lose 17-14 to Argentina, while Australia came unstuck 31-14 against France.
“We had a game plan against New Zealand – play at our pace, and they would get frustrated”.
Captain Scott Curry said they were guilty of making too may mistakes.
The highest-profile player involved in rugby’s return to the Olympics after 92 years, Williams did not get up after being tackled just after half-time on 9 August and was helped from the field. Lemeki added that it was not all about Williams.
“As we played on, we started getting more confident and New Zealand started to struggle a bit”.
New Zealand will face Kenya at 8.30am while U.S. will take on Brazil at 9am.
But there was to be no such drama as the Fijians eventually ran out 40-12 winners in their Pool A match, although the loudest cheer of the day was reserved for local Gustavo Albuquerque as he notched up a consolation try.
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It was one of three upsets on captivating day one of the men’s sevens with Australia falling 31-14 to France and Argentina also surprising US 17-14.
