Aussie coach to kicker: This is for the gold medal

But they rebounded to comfortably beat Spain 24-0 in their quarter-final to set up a semi-final against Canada, while New Zealand will play Britain in their last-four clash on Monday after edging the ever-improving United States team 5-0 in a nervy display.

At the other end of the tournament, Brazil notched up a 33-5 victory over Japan to ensure themselves a core team place on next season’s Sevens Series circuit.

Portia Woodman scored a hat-trick to take her tally to nine tries for the tournament as New Zealand powered past Britain 25-7 in the second semi-final under grey skies at the Deodoro Stadium.

With rugby back in the Olympics for the first time in 92 years, a women’s team will claim the first gold medal ever awarded in sevens.

New Zealand now go forward to meet pre-tournament favourites Australia in the final. They turned to people like Alev Kelter, who played soccer and hockey at Wisconsin and fell short of making the USA women’s hockey team. Just over a minute into the second half, Farella picked up her second try of the match as Canada extended its lead to 31 points. “It was a nice surprise, and hard”, Woodman said. Tylia Nathan-Wong was yellow carded and sent from the field for two minutes. “So I’m really proud”.

“But we’re in medal contention, so (we’re) excited”.

Australia coach Tim Walsh said the Americans gave his team “the kick up the trousers that we needed going into the quarterfinals”, where Charlotte Caslick scored twice and Tonegato added another to each increase their tournament tallies to six, equal with Woodman.

“We haven’t got the loss against our name but it was definitely the kick up the trousers that we needed going into the quarterfinals”, Australia coach Tim Walsh said.

After a shaky Sunday, when Australia needed a late equalizer in a 12-12 result against the United States to finish the group stage and New Zealand struggled to a 5-0 win over the Americans, narrowly avoiding a quarterfinal upset, the situation was back to normal with medals on the line.

The top three teams from the sevens world series appeared more vulnerable on Sunday than Britain, a team containing 11 members of the England team which placed fourth in the world series.

The Canadians entered as the likely bronze medalists, but now face Australia in the semifinals – which doesn’t entirely bother them.

Chloe Dalton made it 17-0 when she dived over in the left corner before Charity Williams ran the short side to score a consolation try for Canada. “But obviously we came here to win gold”.

Canada, after finishing third in this year’s World Series, looked impressive during Saturday’s opening flurries, but Scarratt and company put them away in style.