Favourites Australia were among five women’s teams to qualify for the quarter-finals on a historic first day of rugby sevens competition at the Olympic Games on Saturday.
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New Zealand emerged as the winners of the last Rugby World Cup Sevens tournament, held in 2013 while Australia were victors of the edition before that in 2009.
Earlier on Sunday, Great Britain’s Abigail Brown scored less than 15 seconds into the match against Fiji.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – The United States was seconds away from the biggest upset of the Olympic rugby sevens tournament before Emma Tonegato and Chloe Dalton combined to earn Australia a 12-12 draw Sunday in a dramatic end to the group stage. Fijian Luisa Tisolo’s jarring form tackle of a US player in the second half of the pool play opener would have made Clay Matthews proud.
They were made to work harder by Spain, who were looking to bounce back from a 24-7 defeat to France in the first ever Olympic sevens match. “That’s really cool. Bui (Baravilala) set me up pretty well, so I just had to turn on the afterburners and score”.
Britain began to stretch their legs in the second half, Brown scoring her second try of the game following some neat interplay, with the conversion wrapping up the scoring.
New Zealand, France, Canada and Great Britain will also be in the hunt for medals after going through the opening day unbeaten as well with Fiji and US the only other sides to record a win on this historic day for rugby sevens.
United States captain Kelly Griffin praised Javelet for her pace, saying “she can come into these games and make a difference”.
“On Day 1, we gelled really well but you’re not playing the top teams in the world so you’re gonna look like you’re really performing”, Kish said after the game. “I trust these girls”. Portia Woodman’s try broke the deadlock for New Zealand just before halftime.
As predicted Australia, Canada, Great Britain and New Zealand have safely negotiated their way through the first two days of competition in Rio to book their semi-final spots.
Brazil, Colombia, Kenya and Japan were the teams to miss out on the knockout rounds and they will play off later on Sunday for a “core team” place on next year’s world series.
Canada’s Olympic Committee set a goal of 19 medals heading into Rio, and the swim team of Montreal’s Sandrine Mainville, Winnipeg’s Chantal Van Landeghem and 16-year-olds Taylor Ruck of Kelowna, B.C., and Penny Oleksiak of Toronto gave them a good start with a strong swim in the 4×100 relay final.
Coach Tim Walsh still wasn’t pleased with the four-try shutout of the Spaniards, featuring uncharacteristic handling errors, and warned his top-ranked side they need a marked improvement.
They had four and half hours between games – to think about what they did wrong and what to do better – before coming back out, to face France, a far tougher team than Fiji, which they would have faced had they won their earlier match.
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What, I asked a colleague who once played rugby, is the point of the scrum, except to push and stuff?
