Australia, New Zealand dominate women’s 7s

By LITIA MATHEWSELL

A Tongan player lead the charge against Fijian yesterday in the Oceania Women’s 7s competition at Churchill Park in Lautoka. Photo: BRUCE SOUTHWICK (ZOOM FIJI)

Both the Qantas Australia and New Zealand sevens teams are confident of playing in the final of the Oceania Women Rugby World Cup 7s qualifier.
The tournament’s first round at Lautoka’s Churchill Park saw Australia rack up an impressive total of 113 points after thrashing the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Samoa.
Coach Tim Walts was happy with the caliber of play displayed by his girls.
‘’We’ve had a pretty good day with 100-odd points but tomorrow (today) is a whole new ball game so we’ll have to start everything again,’Walts said.
Assessing the competition, he said the Papua New Guinea proved to be well drilled and quite physical as were the Samoans in the ruck.
‘’All our games were well contested and hard-fought. Some of the Fijian girls have amazing flair and speed. For our girls today, I though across the board they did very well and did a very good job and was a very good team effort,’’ he said.
New Zealand coach Sean Horan said he expected Fiji’s competitive edge.
‘’This is Fiji’s home turf and they obviously wanted to achieve the World Cup status so the game was nothing we didn’t expect.
‘’Fiji got an early try and put us under pressure but for an inexperienced side I thought we showed a lot of heart to clear our heads and to come and win it.
The accuracy of what the girls showed was outstanding,’’ he said.

Results: New Zealand 19 Fiji 7,  
Papua New Guinea 39 Solomon Islands 0,
Australia 34 Samoa 0, Tonga 15 Cook Islands 0. Fiji 36  Cook Islands 7,
Papua New Guinea 17 Samoa 10, Australia 50-0 Solomon Islands
New Zealand 54-0 Tonga.

By LITIA MATHEWSELL

Both the Qantas Australia and New Zealand sevens teams are confident of playing in the final of the Oceania Women Rugby World Cup 7s qualifier.
The tournament’s first round at Lautoka’s Churchill Park saw Australia rack up an impressive total of 113 points after thrashing the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Samoa.
Coach Tim Walts was happy with the caliber of play displayed by his girls.
‘’We’ve had a pretty good day with 100-odd points but tomorrow (today) is a whole new ball game so we’ll have to start everything again,’Walts said.
Assessing the competition, he said the Papua New Guinea proved to be well drilled and quite physical as were the Samoans in the ruck.
‘’All our games were well contested and hard-fought. Some of the Fijian girls have amazing flair and speed. For our girls today, I though across the board they did very well and did a very good job and was a very good team effort,’’ he said.
New Zealand coach Sean Horan said he expected Fiji’s competitive edge.
‘’This is Fiji’s home turf and they obviously wanted to achieve the World Cup status so the game was nothing we didn’t expect.
‘’Fiji got an early try and put us under pressure but for an inexperienced side I thought we showed a lot of heart to clear our heads and to come and win it.
The accuracy of what the girls showed was outstanding,’’ he said.

Results: New Zealand 19 Fiji 7,
Papua New Guinea 39 Solomon Islands 0,
Australia 34 Samoa 0, Tonga 15 Cook Islands 0. Fiji 36  Cook Islands 7,
Papua New Guinea 17 Samoa 10, Australia 50-0 Solomon Islands
New Zealand 54-0 Tonga.

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Posted by newsroom on August 4, 2012. Filed under Fiji Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.