Ferns start World Cup with a flourish

Twenty-eight minutes of sevens rugby and 102 unanswered points — that was the Black Ferns Sevens’ early statement to opponents in San Francisco hoping to deny the Commonwealth Games champions their second straight World Cup title this weekend.

Eager to get on to the transformed AT&T Park baseball stadium, home of Major League’s San Francisco Giants, the New Zealand women’s side sent out an early warning with a 57-0 thumping of Mexico and backed that up with a 45-0 demolition of Ireland in the quarter-finals.

In fact, the Black Ferns Sevens were so dominant that not once during the day did they let an opponent set foot inside their 22.

They face an exciting United States team who will be buoyed by more than 30,000 vocal American fans in their semifinal at 7.04am today.

New Zealand’s Portia Woodman said the first day was encouraging.

“One of the big things that we came into this tournament to work on was our defence, as without getting the ball back, we can’t win our games.”

“So getting into the Ireland game, our biggest thing was staying connected and knowing we’ve got each other’s backs, and once we get the ball, it’s a matter of holding on to it.”

Olympic and World Series champions Australia meet France in the other women’s semifinal.

Also laying down their title credentials — albeit in not such spectacular fashion — was the All Blacks Sevens, whose full squad of 12 had time on the park in a 29-5 win over Russia. Joe Ravouvou continued his impressive try-scoring form from the World Series, crossing twice for New Zealand to set up a quarter-final at 11.26am today against France, who earlier upset Australia.

New Zealand co-captain Scott Curry said the French result proved there were no clear favourites in sevens any more.

“We knew that going into this game. It was only 12-5 at halftime, so we took nothing for granted and will do the same against the French.”

The other men’s quarter-finals will see England meet the US, Scotland face World Series champions South Africa and Argentina play tournament favourites Fiji.

The women’s competition ends today, with the final at 2.47pm.