The Fijians had earlier produced the first upset of the tournament with a 12-7 defeat of the United States.
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New Zealandand France are also assured of places in the last eight after two victories apiece in pool B while Canada and Great Britain did likewise to qualify for the quarter-finals from pool C.
“Going into the game we expected some shooters, some high tackles, some late hits”, coach Walsh said.
“I thought we nullified Fiji’s strength and really played to our’s”.
Favourites Australia and arch-rivals New Zealand were in ruthless form as rugby sevens made its Olympic debut on Saturday.
The likes of Charlotte Caslick, Emma Tonegato, Nicole Beck and Ellia Green showed they would have a tough time catching them first. Kelter’s score marked the team’s first points ever at the Olympics. “It’s a great start”.
“We’ve been trying to treat it as just another tournament”.
“It was an historic moment and it was one of the best moments”, she acknowledged.
New Zealand, meanwhile, wasted little time announcing their medal credentials as they powered past Kenya despite having their captain Sarah Goss and Ruby Tui both sin-binned during the first half. She also added another try later in the first half, as the USA took a 24-0 lead into the intermission.
For World Rugby chairman Bill Beaumont, the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) 2009 decision to make sevens an Olympic sport for at least the Rio and Tokyo 2020 games was a “game changer” that has already had a “halo effect” on the rest of rugby, evidenced in participation figures that have doubled to 7.7m in the period since.
Emily Scarratt scored a pair of tries, while Alice Richardson and Amy Wilson-Hardy each had one for Great Britain, the No. 4 seed in the tournament.
“We won’t talk too much about (a medal), but that’s obviously deep inside and, if we can achieve that for Fiji, we’ll be stoked”, said forward Rebecca Tavo.
“The second performance was really pleasing. They finished third in the World Series this year, and we know we will have to be right on our mettle, but we will recover and prepare properly”.
“They have a club system that’s growing and they took a sevens spot from Samoa for the Olympics”, said the former England centre on a roundtable organised by architectural and engineering firm HOK.
Bianca Farella had two tries in each of Canada’s victories – 45-0 against Japan and 38-0 against Brazil – to move into a share of the try-scoring standings.
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But Britain settled after half-time and ran out comfortable winners on the back of two Natasha Hunt tries, plus touchdowns from Watmore, Scott and Jasmine Joyce, with McLean kicking two conversions.
