New Zealand plays Great Britain in their final pool game at 3.30am on Thursday morning (NZ time), and could yet top group C with a win.
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In a dramatic day’s rugby at the Deodoro Stadium, the Fijians, led superbly by playmaker Osea Kolinisau, held on at the death for a 12-7 victory over the Kiwis, who had scraped into the quarters by a solitary point on points difference from the United States.
South Africa play Australia, Britain face Argentina and Japan will hope to continue their fairytale run against France in the other quarter-final matches later on Wednesday.
All Blacks star Sonny Bill Williams has been ruled out of the Olympics after partially rupturing his Achilles tendon.
If event success was on excitement and breath-taking athleticism, then rugby sevens has certainly made an impression at the Rio 2016 Games.
After New Zealand bounced back to beat Kenya after their first up loss, Williams said he was “really proud” of the team and believes they can beat anybody when they click.
Fiji, the favorite for the mens gold medal, had to wait until the last game of the first round to make its Olympic debut, and conceded the first try to host Brazil before taking control in the second half for a 40-12 win.
“It’s unbelievable, you never see a minnow team come here and beat a team supposed to be a gold medal contender”, said Japan’s New Zealand-born playmaker Lomano Lemeki.
The Americans took an early lead against the tournament favourites but were beaten 24-19 to hand the Kiwis a last-gasp lifeline.
In the match against Great Britain, the players looked shadowed as they lost 31-7 thanks to tries from Dan Bibby, Dan Norton, Phil Burgess and Mark Bennett.
“I think they should have moulded the team around those players who won the Singapore tournament”. I was with the Sevens team in Kuala Lumpur and I know what we went through.
The Olympics’ high profile in Japan is likely to boost rugby in that country even more than the 15-man team’s famous victory over South Africa in last year’s Rugby World Cup.
“New Zealand started to struggle a bit there so we thought if we keep moving the ball around the big guys would tire somewhere and they did”.
“It’s pretty insane, we’ve been told we’ve got to turn our phones off between games”, he said.
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Lemeki said all the pressure was now on Fiji, and the Japanese team would play with freedom because every game after the group stage was a bonus.
