After the first day of Olympic rugby competition in 92 years, leading contenders New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Britain had ensured qualification for the quarterfinals, each with a game to spare.
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In back-to-back games, the USA women were within range of upset wins over Australia and New Zealand, the two leading contenders for the first rugby sevens gold medal ever awarded at the Olympics.
A 15-5 win over France in the quarter-finals at Deodoro Stadium has Canada one win away from a medal and two wins away from the gold. “It’s fun playing against them, always a good run around the back”, – Australia’s Ellia Green on Fiji’s physical approach.
France’s Jade Le Pesq scored the opening try with an acrobatical dive into the corner, but Kayla Moleschi responded for the Canucks before late tries from Bianca Farella and Ghislaine Landry sealed the win. Emma Tonegato reached over to score in the last minute to cut the margin to two points, leaving Chloe Dalton needing to kick the conversion to avoid the loss.
Emily Scarratt’s team made it four successive wins by knocking out quarter-final opponents Fiji 26-7 thanks to Abbie Brown’s try double and touchdowns from Alice Richardson and Joanne Watmore. Portia Woodman scored a try on the final play of the first half to give New Zealand a 5-0 lead.
All Blacks 7s coach, Sir Gordon Tietjens is appealing for New Zealand to centralize its men’s sevens rugby programme or risk being surpassed by better-resourced nations.
They were excellent throughout the pools stages except for a brief hiccup against the US, and then recorded an absolute smashing in the quarter-finals, knocking over Spain 24-0.
Which teams are in the last four?
“The statistics show that we understand what is needed to get the team right when we have a decent time frame to prepare in”.
“You have someone to look up to, to try to be as strong as her”, she said.
Chief among the teams coming for the Australians will be their neighbours New Zealand, who won the first three world series crowns.
“The position I play in, I am quite fortunate that I can slot into the forwards and the backs and do a bit of everything”. “I think we can play a hell of a lot better than that”. Monday they play two games to determine their final placement. Just keep channel hopping until you find the rugby.
The 12 teams each play three group matches, with the top eight advancing to the quarterfinals on Sunday afternoon. “We want gold. We’ve created the opportunity for it, so now it’s up to us to take it”.
“We just can’t afford to make turnovers like we did in the two games today against them”, said Tait, a towering six-foot-nine former Canadian global.
Her moment of redemption came at the end of the match with France: With just a second left on the clock she leapt for a pass, wove through the blue defence to slide with the ball over the try line, then shot a mile into the air, her disastrous day at least in part redeemed.
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After topping Pool C with their solid victory over Canada earlier in the day, Team GB made the flawless start to their quarter-final against Fiji, scoring straight from the opening kickoff through Abbie Brown to take an early 7-0 lead.
