All Blacks clinch Sydney title in emphatic style
THE New Zealand men’s and women’s teams consolidated their dominance, sweeping both titles in Sydney.
While the Black Ferns 7s secured their third straight tournament victory, following success at Cape Town and Hamilton, their male counterparts celebrated their first win of the season, after falling short at the previous two events.
The All Blacks 7s lost to South Africa in pool play, but gave their rivals no chance in the tournament decider, running in six unanswered tries to Roderick Solo, Joe Webber, Sam Dickson, Akuila Rokolisoa, Amanaki Nicole and Ngarohi McGarvey-Black to prevail 38-0. Earlier, the Black Ferns defeated France for the second time over the weekend, with Tenika
Willison and Jazmin Felix-Hotham scoring doubles in a 35-0 whitewash. Incredibly, both teams kept their opponents scoreless in their respective finals.
The All Blacks 7s played with guts, determination and vigour.
Their team bonding stood out and the senior players marshaled the new guns in Leroy Carter, Brady Rush, Payton Spencer, Lewis Ormond and Roderick Solo. At this rate and pace, it is going to be hard to stop the All Blacks 7s from winning the 2022/2023 HSBC WRSS overall title and qualifying for the Olympic Games as the top seeds. Fijians fall short against South Africa The Blitzboks kept their unbeaten run intact with a 31-12 victory over Fiji in the semi-final.
They were impressive, scoring five tries against two, with Shilton van Wyk grabbing a brace, while the Blitzboks defended very well. Although they made a hash of the kick-off, the Blitzboks turned over possession at the resulting scrum and worked their way up-field.
With a minute to go in the half, the Blitzboks launched a great attack to the right from a scrum, and Dalvon Blood just managed to get the ball down before he put a hand into touch. Jaiden Baron went over for the third try as South Africa led 17-0 at the break. Iowane Teba went over for a try, but Darren Adonis hacked through a dropped ball and just managed to beat the Fijian defence to all, but seal the deal.
Van Wyk rubbed salt into the Fijian wounds with his second try, an easy intercept of a loose pass. Vuiviawa Naduvalo scored a consolation try for Fiji. Fiji claims bronze in Sydney
The men’s 7s team settled for third place and took out the bronze medal after a convincing win over France 295. Fiji led 17-5 at half-time as Iowane Teba and Vuiviawa Naduvalo blitzed through the Les Bleus defence. France opened scoring through Thomas Carol, but the boys maintained their brilliant performance from the first half into the second with tries to Manueli Maisamoa and Alasio Naduva.
Heading to the next leg in Los Angeles, Fiji is now ranked fifth (67 points), one point behind Samoa and France. A win in LA, where we are pooled alongside Australia, Kenya and Japan, will push Fiji up to third place.
However, emphasis must be placed on the strength and conditioning aspect, making tackles, converting tries, winning restarts, contesting the break down and playing as a team.
Individual mistakes and aimless passing has become an eyesore. We also need to inject new blood in the teamAnasa Qaranivalu, Serupepeli Nakita, Rokoua Rasaku, Onisimo Nawalu, Inia Tawalo, Aisake Peci, Napolioni Bolaca, Paula Nayacakalou and Terio Tamani, and take assistance from top Police 7s coach Sale Tubuna.