Series champions Fiji confirmed their position at the top of the pool with a 24-19 win over U.S., which knocked the Americans out of medal contention.
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Seeing Williams, a two-time World Cup victor with the All Blacks, being helped off with his injury in the second-half was a “boost”, the Japanese players admitted.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – 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. We defended with six for a while and then put seven points on them and stayed in the game.
Finally, the people of the Pacific had a realistic chance of winning an Olympic medal.
It follows a poor campaign in which New Zealand suffered a surprise opening loss to Japan and then lost to Great Britain in their final pool match.
“There were a few things we didn’t get right in that one and they are very good side”.
Giant-slayer Japan’s earlier defeat of Kenya meant New Zealand had to win to assure themselves of a quarter-final position.
Hours after beating the 12-time world sevens series champions New Zealanders for the first time, the Japan squad showed it was no fluke by pushing Great Britain all the way before missing a last-minute kick at goal that could have forced a draw.
Japan built their combinations during a two-week camp at Narrabeen on Sydney’s northern beaches, alongside the Australian players, earlier this year.
An emotional Scarratt said: “We are massively disappointed”.
“As we played on, the boys started to get more confident”, said Lemeki.
Hansen meanwhile, who guided their 15s team to World Cup glory in 2015, wants to ensure the same mistakes are not made again. Great Britain and South Africa are a different story in regards to expectations, but will meet at 2:00 p.m.in the other semifinals matchup nonetheless. “We’ve got to get on with it”, he told Radio Sport.
Ryan says sometimes it’s unsafe to set out goals as a coach, but Fiji is No 1 in the world, and Ryan says they are not trying to be arrogant – they are saying this is what we want. Which channel it will actually be on is anyone’s guess seeing as the Beeb keep asking us to channel hop. “The guys bounced back with a lot of character against Kenya”.
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Caslick, who featured strongly in the four-tries-to-three final victory, scoring one try and having a hand in Ellia Green’s second-half score, said Charlesworth’s comments reflected the fact that “I guess he’s never played sevens”.
