“It is an awesome opportunity for us to represent Team GB at the Olympic Games so this has been a very special opportunity for us”.
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“It feels pretty good, being a Kiwi, probably one of the most hated ones at the moment!”
But Williams’ injury may leave an open field for Fiji to seize their first Olympic medal.
“It’s unbelievable”, said Japan back Lomano Lemeki.
The Japanese are the great shock of the Sevens tournament at Rio 2016.
“I think the Japanese boys started to smile a little bit because they wouldn’t have to tackle him!”
And pre-tournament favourites Fiji, who are coached by Englishman Ben Ryan, looked seriously in the mood as they brushed aside Brazil before making it two wins out of two by seeing off Argentina, albeit a much closer contest at 21-14.
“I don’t know what happened”.
“New Zealand were the better team in the first game, but we didn’t show up against Canada”.
“Down but never out, always praise to the most high for blessing me with so much!” said Williams in a post on Twitter.
In echoes of the victory of their 15-man team over South Africa at the Rugby World Cup previous year, the Japanese showed no deference to the acknowledged superpower of the global game. Kenya are a great team so it is great to get that out of the way but we want to keep building with every game.
The Americans needed a win, a draw or a loss by fewer than five points against Fiji on Wednesday to reach the quarterfinals at the expense of New Zealand, but missed out by one kick.
Fiji only made it to Brazil thanks to New Zealand’s disqualification for fielding an ineligible player at last year’s Pacific Games.
Rugby in Japan has been nearly entirely dominated by teams owned by big corporations which import talent from overseas. “Everyone was flying just like a kamikaze plane trying to chop their legs off – as long as we didn’t let them score a try, if we got knocked out that’s fine”. “It took us a while to win a World Cup [after 1987]”, said Hansen, as reported by the New Zealand Herald. “Silver will be as disappointing as bronze or fourth place”.
South Africa and France were first to secure their places courtesy of a series of results that set up a three-way tie on points at the top of Pool B. Despite losing 12-5 to Australia, South Africa finished top with France second thanks to a 26-5 win over Spain.
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Mitchell, who comes from Cuckfield and went to Worth School, has captained his side to two wins out of two in the group section of the tournament.
