Australia take gold in first-ever Olympic women’s rugby 7 championship

Earlier today Japan shocked the rugby world again by beating New Zealand in their first match in the Rio Olympics, but the 14-12 score line was not the big shock of the match.

Playing well above themselves, the underdogs scored the opening try but the Kiwi side led 12-7 with two minutes to go before Kameli Soejima crossed out wide and Ktsuyuki Sakai nailed a clutch conversion.

Williams, twice a World Cup victor in the 15-man game, sustained the injury charging into a tackle but immediately indicated to the bench that he needed help.

It marked a hugely disappointing day for New Zealand, one of the favorites for the gold medal with the path to the final now likely to prove far more hard.

“It’s been fascinating to see the build-up, the challenges over the last 10 weeks and seeing how they (British players) have faced those and adapted to them”.

“He’s like a main weapon in the New Zealand team so that was our game plan, just try to stop him, especially in offloading”.

Fiji has competed at the Olympics since 1956 but never won a medal, although they’ve never had a chance to compete in the national sport at the Summer Games.

With Eastwood’s Director of Rugby John Manenti watching on from the sidelines as assistant coach, the girls overcame their trans-tasman rivals in an exciting and hard-hitting contest.

“We now focus on tomorrow”. The rollercoaster of sevens goes up and goes down, and so hopefully we can rest up nicely ahead of tomorrow.

“W e moved the ball nicely against Kenya, which was decent”. It shows everything that we’ve worked for.

Straight after the match, the New Zealand Olympic Comity announced SBW is out of the tournament with a partially ruptured achilles tendon.

Australia, though, then encountered no difficulty against Spain, and the USA – with Super Bowl victor Nate Ebner and rugby’s fastest man Carlin Isles among their try-scorers – saw off Brazil.

The one occasion on which she did get a start, a pool stage draw with the United States, she was hammered by a tackle inside the first 30 seconds and spent the remainder of the match undergoing concussion protocols.

Both touted as potential stars of the tournament, they had also enjoyed contrasting three days at the Deodoro Stadium as their teams progressed to the gold medal decider.

“We started well, but there were some defining moments in the game and we didn’t make the most of our opportunities, the Australians did”.

“We are just sorry we couldn’t bring home a medal”. “There is a good spirit among the players and we are confident we can deliver the goods”.