“Obviously it’s 20 million times bigger, but in our heads, we’re just trying to keep it relaxed”, Caslick said after Australia’s opening 53-0 hammering of Colombia.
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“We ve had some huge battles with New Zealand over the past few years”. The USA had won that same tournament the previous year, and while a loss to Scotland in the semifinals squashed hopes of a repeat, ending the season with a win over the world champs gave Baker & Co. plenty of reason for optimism heading into Rio.
Despite her disappointment, GB captain Emily Scarratt said: “If we’ve inspired any girls to take up rugby, we’ve done our job”.
In a third blow, Joe Webber was taken off the pitch on a stretcher with a dislocated left shoulder soon after Williams but, having already used the one replacement they are allowed, New Zealand have not ruled out a miraculous recovery.
Tries by Teruya Goto and Kameli Soejima and two superb conversions from out wide by Lemeki and Sakai saw Segawa’s team throw the form book out the window as New Zealand ended up on the receiving end of one of the biggest upsets sevens has ever seen. “Hopefully I can go out and prove them right”.
Along with Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, winning gold, silver, and bronze respectively, the inaugural Olympic women’s rugby sevens competition also included the US placing fifth, and host country Brazil finishing in ninth place.
Britain narrowly avoided going the same way as New Zealand, who were victims of arguably the greatest shock in sevens history when Japan beat them 14-12, while they also lost World Cup victor Sonny Bill Williams to an Olympics-ending injury. The Australians responded with a controversial try from Emma Tonegato, who appeared to fumble the ball as she dove into the corner.
While she was stewing with seconds to go in the half, Australia tapped the penalty, and went ahead 10-5 thanks to an overlap try to Evania Pelite where Woodman would have been patrolling.
“I think hockey is as hard as any of the team games you play”, Charlesworth said.
Australia beat New Zealand 24-17 to claim gold, with Caslick a star in the victory. We just ran out of time.
Charlesworth played for Australia in hockey at four Olympic Games, before coaching the women’s Hockeyroos to gold medals in Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 and the men’s Kookaburras to World Cup glory.
Tietjens said his team would miss Williams, a two-time World Cup champion with the All Blacks and the highest profile player in the tournament.
Canada won bronze with its 33-10 victory over Great Britain at Deodoro Stadium Monday night.
Karen Paquin opened the scoring for the Canucks, with Danielle Waterman responding before Ghislaine Landry dummied her way over to retake the lead.
Canada had gone 2-1 in preliminary round play with wins over Japan (45-0) and Brazil (38-0) giving them second in Pool C behind Great Britain.
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While the final and the match for bronze were dominated by four Commonwealth countries with strong rugby traditions, Spain, France, Fiji and the United States were eliminated in the quarter-finals.
