Revenge for women

The New Zealand women’s sevens team avenged their Rio Olympics gold medal match defeat to Australia, beating their trans-tasman rivals to win the Dubai Sevens. Rookie Rebekah Tufuga scored a try in each half after veteran Portia Woodman opened the scoring in the convincing 17-5 victory in the tournament final on Friday (Saturday NZ Time). It was New Zealand’s first women’s world series tournament win since April 2015. Chelsea took down another major rival en route to an eighth straight win in the English Premier League yesterday by rallying for a 3-1 win at Manchester City, who finished with nine men after two late red cards. Diego Costa was the architect of the turnaround, equalising in the 60th minute with a league-high 11th goal of the season, before setting free substitute Willian for the second goal in the 70th at Etihad Stadium. Eden Hazard clinched victory in the 90th. In a chaotic ending, City had two players sent off in injury time – Aguero for a lunge on David Luiz and Fernandinho moments later for pushing Cesc Fabregas by the neck over the advertising hoardings in the ensuing melee. Arsenal forward Alexis Sanchez displayed his mesmerising skills by scoring a 15-minute hattrick in 5-1 demolition job against injury hit West Ham at London Stadium. Arsenal was leading 1-0 through Mesut Ozil’s 24th minute goal, which was set up by Sanchez, before the Chilean started his spree. A brilliant individual effort in the 72nd minute was followed by a low strike from outside the area in the 80th, before he ran through and chipped the goalkeeper to complete his hat-trick in the 86th minute. Alex Oxlade-chamberlain was Arsenal’s other scorer.