Overall, it’s fair to say rugby sevens has been a huge success on its Olympic debut, bringing a new audience to the sport and hopefully inspiring people around the world to pick up an oval ball.
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“It hasn’t actually sunk in yet”.
Fiji’s Rugby team defeated Britain to win their first-ever gold medal in the Olympics.
A group of burly Fijian rugby players gather in a circle, eyes shut tight, heads thrown back and tears streaming down their cheeks, as they sing a hymn of victory.
Straight from the off the Fijians showed why they are double world champions, their free-flowing, flamboyant rugby tearing Great Britain apart in the first half, as they scored try after try without return.
“Fiji picked us off pretty well at the kick-offs, but if we’d held on to a few more tackles the game would have been different”.
With the Olympics in full swing, one Appleton man is celebrating his home country’s victory in men’s rugby, and the country’s first ever gold medal.
“That was probably one game too far for us”, said Britain’s James Rodwell.
“It’s hard to prepare to play against Fiji – you just never know what they are going to do.
Very special to have that and I think it’s still sinking in for a lot of people really that a tiny island of Fiji are able to produce gold medals”. “It’s not often that Japan ranks higher than Australia and New Zealand in rugby”, said Japan playmaker Lomano Lemeki.
“We can showcase little country like us who don’t have the financial backing like the other countries have, but we managed to beat them”, he said.
The South Pacific island country came to a standstill at the start of the rugby sevens final against Great Britain, and by half-time the fireworks had started and there was a monumental chorus of vehicle horns as it became evident Fiji would win and create history.
Ryan was left disillusioned with the game after he was sacked as England sevens coach after seven years in charge and was grateful to receive a quick offer from Fiji to take over its program where he said he rediscovered his fire.
Tietjens believes the men’s sevens team will rise again in the wake of their disastrous Rio campaign, which resulted in a quarterfinal loss to Fiji and an eventual fifth placing.
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Afrika added: “We were deeply disappointed in the manner that we played in the semi-final, but a bronze medal is a fantastic finish for us”.
