Canadian women book ticket to semis at Vancouver sevens
Canada’s women’s rugby sevens team booked its place in the semifinals of the HSBC SVNS Series stop at B.C. Place.
Canada edged the U.S. 12-10 in a nail-biting finish to their quarter-final match, surviving after the Americans missed a conversion after scoring in the dying moments of the game.
The Canadians will play New Zealand in today’s semifinals, while Australia squares off with France in the other final four showdown.
Canadian coach Jack Henratty admitted the fixture was closer than he would have liked, but it showed the maturity of his team.
“I don’t know if my heart is still beating,” he said. “I think there was incredible resiliency.
“We’ve been in moments of control in the last few years and we haven’t been able to put it away. We’ve been out-rugby IQ’d and tonight we were able to finish it off.”
Krissy Scurfield and Florence Symonds scored twice for Canada in the dying seconds of the first half.
But the U.S. refused to give up, despite going down by two players at one point due to yellow-card cautions.
Ariana Ramsey scored twice but Alev Kelter missed the conversion to seal the win.
Veteran Olivia Apps acknowledged that the Canadians had made it tough on themselves but showed a resiliency to register the win.
“It feels incredible. This is exactly where we wanted to be to finish this weekend,” she said. “I think we made it a little harder on ourselves than we needed to … but I’m so proud of this team.”
The Canadian men’s team fell 20-14 in the ninth-place semifinal to South Africa, despite a spirited comeback attempt.
Josiah Morra scored twice for Canada with Max Stewart making both conversion attempts.
The loss was Canada’s fourth of the tournament, following a 31-14 loss to Spain earlier in the day.
France’s Antoine Dupont also marked his first sevens appearance with a try in a 31-5 win over Australia. The 27-year-old Dupont skipped this year’s Six Nations to play sevens as he bids to win Olympic gold in Paris this summer.
In the Canadian women’s opening game, Canada rolled to a 22-5 win over Spain.
After taking an early twotry lead courtesy of Fancy Bermudez and Florence Symonds, Spain pulled one back to end the first half 10-5.
Charity Williams restored the lead midway through the second half after receiving an off-load from Symonds to break down the wing.