Wins over Kenya (14-12) and Wales (43-0) confirmed a spot in the last eight of the first round of the 2015-16 HSBC Sevens World Series, but defeat to England (5-21) consigned Australia to a match against the current World Series champions.
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The United States hammered home their growing reputation with a stunning 14-12 win over New Zealand at the Dubai Sevens on Friday.
It’s the second leg of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, a week after the opening tournament in Dubai (4-5 December).
So yeah, the US upsetting New Zealand is a pretty big deal.
England, four times winners, earlier made it through to the final with a hard-fought 24-19 victory over United States.
The scoreline flattered England as Fiji had their second Dubai Sevens title in three years secure by half-time, leading 28-7.
Fiji scored all of their points in the first half after falling behind to an early Tom Bowen try.
Savenaca Rawaca burst past two defenders to storm in, Jasa Veremalua and Isake Katonibau followed in quick succession from the kick-offs, then man-of-the-tournament Tuwai, after the half-time hooter, stepped out of a crowd of defenders to sprint free.
Ryan was delighted with his team efforts, hailing Fiji as the benchmark for sevens excellence.
Dubai is the first stop of the 10-event World-Series, which includes a stop in Canada for the first time.
“We are ahead of the curve now compared to other teams and they will look at us now and try and work out how to negate that”, he told the Gulf News. “They are much improved but we had enough opportunities but didn’t play as a team when it came time to execute”.
They will face South Africa on Saturday, when Fiji face Australia, New Zealand play Samoa and England take on Argentina.
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Ben Ryan’s side got off to an impressive start scoring nine converted tries through nine different scorers in their 63-14 victory over Canada in the opening match of the season, before victories over Japan and Argentina, which set the tone for an enthralling day one with lots of thrills and spills in the Dubai sunshine. Trainor’s try cut the lead, but Gaston Revol scored with three minutes remaining to up the lead to 19-7.
