Sydney Sevens: Day One, Wrap
There were comfortable wins in first round action at the Sydney Sevens for reigning series champions South Africa, Fiji and New Zealand.
The Blitzboks, All Blacks Sevens and Scotland all notched a half century of points in their opening matches, against Papua New Guinea, Russia and Canada respectively and Fiji got the better of Samoa.
Match of the round saw Australia beat USA 26-19 with England, Argentina and France also winning their first matches.
On Australia Day, New Zealand were in a rampant mood in their opener against Russia, scoring nine tries in a 61-0 victory. Pool A rivals Fiji turned on the style in the second half tobeat Pacific island rivals Samoa 31-5.
In Pool B, Argentina claimed a narrow 7-5 win over Kenya and France beat Wales 31-12.
Rosko Specman bagged a hat-trick of tries as the Springbok Sevens team opened their campaign with a strong 50-0 win over Papua New Guinea while England secured a hard-fought 22-10 win over Spain.
Springbok Sevens coach Neil Powell was pleased with the eight try romp, but warned that Spain and England, the remaining opponents for the Blitzboks in Pool C of the tournament, will ask more challenging questions from his team when they clash on Saturday.
“Spain is a team that is making great progress,” he said.
“They play some good sevens and we need to start all over again when we face them on Saturday. We need to lay down the foundation for the rest of the day.”
Specman scored his tries in the second, eighth and 11th minutes of play, with Ruhan Nel (twice), Seabelo Senatla, Stedman Gans and Cecil Afrika also crossing the tryline. Justin Geduld kicked four conversions and Afrika one.
“I asked the guys to keep the game structured and was happy with this win as PNG loves to play against an unstructured defence,” said Powell.
“We were in a position to make changes at half-time already and it was good to give everyone a run, to get their lungs going.”
The Springbok Sevens are the defending champions at the event, the third of ten in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series.
In Pool D, Australia's Timothy Anstee scored the match-winning try shortly before full-time against the USA and Scotland thrashed Canada 52-5 in the final match of the day.
Men's competition, Day One, results:
(kick-off times are local, GMT plus 11 hours)
England 22-10 Spain
South Africa 50-0 Papua New Guinea
France 31-12 Wales
Argentina 7-5 Kenya
Fiji 31-5 Samoa
New Zealand 61-0 Russia
United States 19-26 Australia
Canada 5-52 Scotland
Meanwhile, it was a full day of pool matches for the Women’s Sevens Series and it was fast and furious on the field at Allianz Stadium with three teams heading to the Cup finals unbeaten.
The biggest surprise of the day was Japan beating England but the host team Australia, targeting a second straight tournament win after victory in Dubai, made the most of a vocal national holiday crowd and remained unbeaten on day one after victories over Spain, Papua New Guinea and France. Canada, who won the tournament last year, came through a tough pool to also remain unbeaten.
Rising Australian star Emma Sykes said: “I was so focused on the matches that I almost forget it was Australia Day. We started slowly against Spain first up but we finished the match strongly, the girls were really sharp, and we continued that form into the other two matches. “
New Zealand showed their class conceding just one try on their way to three wins. Kiwi flyer Portia Woodman scored 10 tries including a hat-trick in all three of her team’s matches to take her all-time series hat-trick tally to an amazing 11.
“Can’t say I have done that before as I am not keeping count but it shows how strong the girls are going as I am seeing a lot of the ball,” said Woodman.
“It’s still only day one and we had a game plan to make all our up front tackles and commit on defence. So we are happy but this happened in Dubai, we beat USA in pool play but day two came and we lost to them. Day two is a different story and we need to play just was well tomorrow,” added Woodman.
The Women's Cup quarter-finals will see Australia play Spain, Canada play France, New Zealand play Ireland and USA play Russia. Papua New Guinea, England, Fiji and Japan will contest the Challenge Trophy semi-finals.
Full details, results and Day Two match schedule click HERE
With thanks to World Rugby