The Pearls’ successful pursuit of Olympic Gold must rank among Australian rugby’s greatest moments. Instead of being played over 80 minutes, matches are split into two seven-minute halves that are often high-scoring and frenetic.
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Rider Christopher Burton is also sitting in the individual gold medal position.
But a New Zealand squad containing Sonny Bill Williams – a two-time World Cup victor in the 15-a-side game and the highest-profile star competing in rugby’s return to the Olympics after 92 years – won as many titles (3) as Fiji on the 10-stop world sevens circuit.
New Zealanders, Australians, Americans, Britons and Canadians are all present in healthy numbers, as well as some Fijians.
She’s targeting Olympic gold in Tokyo, saying “I’m not feeling like this again”. We just ran out of time.
The ARU, whose decision-making has left a lot to be desired for well over a decade, made the right call in this instance to initiate talent identification camps for women’s rugby sevens in the years that followed the 2009 announcement of the sport’s admission to the Olympics.
“It came down to that one mistake”.
Team GB Sevens cruised to a 31-7 victory over Kenya as New Zealand were stunned by Japan in the opening pool fixtures of the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
“I think we’re getting reasonable crowds, we’d like to see a few more people here”, admits Gosper, who will have been heartened to see a significantly larger crowd for the final.
“They’ve been dominant in women’s rugby ever since we started playing”. But silver’s still good in New Zealand’s eyes and we hope we have done them proud, ‘ she said.
“We have improved since the World Series but I’m sure other teams have to”.
Back track to the first day of competition in Rio when world No 1 Australia got their men’s hockey campaign under way with a 2-1 win over the Black Sticks.
Despite some struggle for team New Zealand, they managed to pocket a Bronze Medal coming in the third place, to Great Britain taking Gold, while in the seconds place The Netherlands took home Silver.
Woodman, the daughter and niece of All Blacks, switched from netball to rugby four years ago, and with power, pace and fancy footwork has become the all-time leading try-scorer with 119 in the four years of the women’s world sevens series.
“We love the physical battle and that played into our hands”, said braided postergirl playmaker Charlotte Caslick.
Rugby sevens is created to be a faster, slimmed down version of rugby, with only seven players on the pitch compared to the typical fifteen. “You give them that much time and space and they get open and running in the field, they’re pretty impossible to stop”.
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And Australia is chasing more gold on Monday night at the pool and rugby sevens.
