Fiji’s players form a human ring as the hold up the ball together at the start of the men’s rugby sevens match against New Zealand at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2016.
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Great things were expected of the All Blacks ahead of the tournament but injuries took their toll and the gold medal favourites Fiji were proved to be just too strong.
New Zealand’s Rieko Ioane reacts after his team’s loss to Fiji in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Argentina finished second behind Fiji in Pool A to set up a quarter-final with unbeaten Britain.
New Zealand led 7-5 at halftime courtesy of a converted try to Gillies Kaka but Fiji hit back after the break through Jerry Tuwai and then were staunch in defence to deny New Zealand.
Coming after their stunning loss to Japan on day one, during which they also lost Sonny Bill Williams and Joe Webber to injury, the defeat left the All Blacks teetering on the brink of an embarrassing exit.
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”.
While New Zealand coach Gordon Tietjens said Williams was understandably “shattered”, the king of the offload himself typically took to Twitter. “But silver’s still good in New Zealand’s eyes and we hope we have done them proud”.
“We dominated sevens for a number of years along with Fiji”, he said.
Just like last year’s astonishing Rugby World Cup upset over South Africa, David upset Goliath in an opening pool match which had the Deodoro Stadium crowd in raptures.
New Zealand also appear to have lost captain Scott Curry for the tournament as he played no part in the third pool game and was not suited up. “So I don’t know what’s happened here!” said Japan’s outstanding New Zealand-born playmaker Lomano Lemeki.
The Brisbane State High School graduate was named Player of the Tournament for Australia after leading the Pearls to the sport’s inaugural Olympic gold medal early on Tuesday morning (AEST).
In the afternoon’s final quarterfinal, Australia and South Africa played each other for the second time in the same day.
“Sometimes it’s unsafe to set out goals as a coach, but we’re number one in the world, we’re not trying to be arrogant, we’re saying this is what we want”.
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Great Britain top Pool C and are in the driving seat to secure a quarter-final place after defeating Kenya 31-7 and Japan 21-19. You have to say in that last game they gave it their all, we have to be proud of that. “Now we need to step up it’s a must-win game for us against Kenya”.
