Rugby returned to the Olympics after a gap of 92 years in brilliant Rio sunshine on Saturday with New Zealand and Australia dominating the first day’s play in the women’s sevens tournament. “It doesn’t matter what the matchup is, it just matters how we play”, said head coach John Tait.
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The final group matches between the already qualified seeds on Sunday should add more intrigue while the medal games on Monday will hopefully see more fans joining the enthusiastic band on hand to witness rugby’s Olympic return.
“In the World Series this year, we’ve seen the top five teams beating each other at some point throughout the season, which means you have got to be right on your game in every match”.
A disappointed Walsh said it was the “kick up the arse” his side required and warned they would be sent home packing if they didn’t improve markedly. “They’ll punish any team for that many turnovers”.
But they didn’t lose their composure, and were resilient, and now, said Kish, “We want to be in the gold-medal match, and show that Canadian rugby is a contender in this sport”.
“It was the first match of rugby in the Olympic Games in nearly 100 years, a souvenir of having played the first game and having won it”, said France coach David Courteix.
Charlotte Caslick matched Woodman’s hat trick, scoring three tries in Australia’s 53-0 win over Colombia, and added another solo effort in the 36-0 win over Fiji, which capped off the first day of competition.
Beaumont noted that some of the top players who compete in 15-a-side rugby did not make their countries’ sevens teams for the Olympics, but he believes new stars will emerge in Rio.
The semifinalists do not come as a surprise. And Canada is the only one of them to have dropped a game en route to the final four.
“Being here, in a Latin country, in South America (where rugby wasn’t very popular), is a great statement”, Pichot said.
A poor kickoff by Landry offered a sign of worrying things to come against the French, who kept the ball away from Canada in the early going.
Kayla Moleschi tied it up for Canada some three minutes later with a solo breakaway run from behind a scrum.
But then as swathes of empty seats testified, too few fans had undertaken the long trek from the centre of Rio to this tidy army base surrounded by mountains far from the city’s picture postcard sights.
There was another strong performance by the soccer team, with star captain Christine Sinclair adding to her worldwide goal total and potential heir apparent Janine Beckie notching her second and third of the tournament in a 3-1 win over Zimbabwe.
“It’s not where we need to be to be in contention for that gold medal”.
“We will keep working on ourselves”.
Bianca Farella and Ghislaine Landry crossed for two tries apiece in Canada’s opening 45-0 win over Japan and the former was at the double again along with Karen Paquin as they made it two from two with a 38-0 defeat of Brazil.
This is rugby sevens’ debut in the Olympic Games, and unlike some of the newer sports the International Olympic Committee has just recently okayed (such as sports climbing, whatever that is, and surfing), it’s actually a proper, not to mention old and well-established game – if, shall we say, a bit literal, having been started at the Rugby School in, yes, Rugby, England, in the 19th century.
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To the members of Team USA, all that matters is that they are playing under the Olympic banner.
