Black Ferns Sevens win backtoback world champs
AUCKLAND: The Black Ferns Sevens have defended their World Cup title, thrashing France 290.
With a hattrick to Michaela Blyde and tries to Portia Woodman and Tyla NathanWong, the Black Ferns dominated the final, and backed up their 2013 success.
Blyde was the star, opening the scoring early. The diminutive speedster could not quite break the last line of defence, but was released, and got up again to cross the line.
Woodman’s try was similar, finishing off a long string of phases following a break by Sarah Goss. She too was tackled just short of the line, but placed the ball in the tackle, regathered it, and dove over to score.
It looked like it would be 100 at the break, but in some quick thinking from NathanWong after the first half hooter, she took a quick tap and scooted into a hole to give the Ferns a lead they would not relinquish.
Blyde completed the rout in the second half, notching two more tries to claim her hattrick, and put the cherry on top of a superb tournament for the Black Ferns.
Allan Bunting’s side kept a clean sheet through Saturday’s opening two knockout games, before overcoming a relentless USA side in the semifinals yesterday, coming from 1412 down to win 2619 in a thrilling final four matchup.
The All Blacks Sevens are also on course to defend their title after completing a dramatic comeback victory on day two in San Francisco yesterday.
The men’s team booked a spot in today’s semifinals, where they will meet Fiji after a 127 quarterfinal victory over France in which they earned more yellow cards than tries. Despite having three men sent from the field in the opening half, New Zealand held on to only trail 70 before tries to Kurt Baker and Joe Ravouvou secured the win.
This morning they face a very stronglooking Fiji side, which dispatched Argentina 437 in their quarterfinal.
England needed an extratime win over the hosts USA to set up a semifinal clash with South Africa, who thrashed Scotland 365.