Sonny Bill Williams dedicated a season to prepare for Rio.
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There’s two fairytale stories in rugby sevens’ engrossing Olympic debut.
Now he’ll be sidelined for up to nine months with an injured Achilles tendon, ruling him out for the All Blacks in 2016.
Williams, twice a World Cup victor in the 15-man game, partially ruptured his Achilles charging into a tackle and was replaced in the squad by Sione Molia.
“We need pressure”, says Fiji’s red-headed British coach, Ben Ryan, who left the grey skies of England three years ago to take up his new role in paradise, where he has been enjoying the pleasures – and taking note of the pitfalls – of island life.
McAlister grabbed her second with less than two minutes to play while Woodman, the all-time leading try-scorer in World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series history with 119 tries over four seasons, took her tournament tally to a leading 10 with a consolation effort on the hooter.
Japan and New Zealand can still qualify, having won a match each, but tomorrow’s mouth-watering Kenya v Japan and Great Britain v New Zealand matches will decide whose medal dreams live on.
But the day unquestionably belonged to Japan, whose star player Lemeki said of their New Zealand scalp: “It is unbelievable”.
There were far fewer dramas earlier in the day as Kenya were despatched 31-7 – Dan Bibby (2), Mark Bennett, Dan Norton and Phil Burgess scored tries – but the stadium then rocked as New Zealand were stunned by Japan. But “there’s a lot of character in this team, I can assure you”.
Tew expected All Blacks coach Steve Hansen and fellow selectors to discuss a squad replacement for Williams shortly. Sione Molia was called in to replace Williams.
The Brave Blossoms’ shock 14-12 victory echoed Japan’s famous victory over South Africa in the 15-a-side World Cup past year, the biggest shock the sport has ever seen.
“They’re a good team”. “There are no given games these days”.
“As we played on, we started getting more confident and New Zealand started to struggle a bit”.
“He’s a great professional”, said Tietjens. You have your best player who has just made a turn over tackle and he is sent out that’s very unfortunate.
Into the second half and the game opened enough for Britain to have the first clear chance.
“There’s no pressure on us, the pressure’s on the big teams, they are the ones supposed to be winning the medals, not us”.
The New Zealanders, shocked by Japan on day one, only qualified on for-and-against differential by one point.
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“Both players really worked their butts off to make this tournament and both are influential players with outstanding qualities that I needed”.
