Japan’s shocking win over New Zealand and a tournament-ending injury to Sonny Bill Williams proved on the first day of Olympic men’s rugby in 92 years what coaches have always been saying about the sevens format. “But the fact we finished with a try will give us something to build on in the next game”, said Japan coach Tomohiro Segawa. “If you’re not up for it on the day, you’ll get beaten by any team”.
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Japan’s 14-12 upset against New Zealand, its first ever in rugby sevens, and its narrow 21-19 loss to Britain turned the formbook in Pool C upside down.
Two James Rodwell tries put Britain in the driving seat, but Japan had no intention of rolling over, and they fought back to level the contest through converted scores from Lomano Lemeki and Katsuyuki Sakai.
“I knew with Kenya and Britain, there was a chance we weren’t even going to look at the quarterfinals, so we’ve got a chance tomorrow to get in there”.
“We’ve seen just how good that Japanese team are – they are outstanding – and they deserved their win, like we deserved ours today”.
A two-time Rugby World Cup victor with the All Blacks in 15s, Williams had little impact on the Olympics. With this win, Canada has now claimed a medal in every rugby sevens event at the Olympic Games, World Cup, Sevens Series circuit overall and Pan Am Games since 2012, for a total of seven medals in seven attempts. “Hopefully our win against New Zealand will boost it another level”.
Williams has partaken in two Rugby World Cups, but it appears that Rio Olympics were a different beast as he nearly completely ruptured his Achilles tendon when he was tackling a Japanese team player.
Charlotte Caslick, who scored a staggering seven tries for Australia in Rio, admitted that the team’s wild partying would likely continue for the duration of the Games.
Coach Gordon Tietjens acknowledged that lacking Williams and Webber was detrimental to the game, as they had “outstanding qualities” that were vital for the team. “The guys bounced back with a lot of character against Kenya”.
The road to Rio came with a high price: The women on the medal-winning team have been training together in Langford, B.C., for, in most cases, the past five years, as amateur athletes, earning $18,000 a year from Sport Canada as carded athletes.
The favourites outscored the Kiwis by four tries to three, two of them crucially coming either side of half-time when star New Zealand winger Portia Woodman was in the sin bin for a deliberate knock-on. He was meant to join the All Blacks after the Olympics ahead of the test second against Australia.
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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 United States of America 17-14. This includes the preparation of derivative works of, or the incorporation of such content into other works. Doing so may result in civil and/or criminal penalties.
