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Mixed fortunes for Australia in Dubai sees men shocked in pool stages
Maddison Levi has proved the opening-day star for Australia’s world champions at the Dubai Sevens, shooting over for seven tries in three games as they swept into the women’s quarter-finals.
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But Australia’s men, fresh from their Hong Kong Sevens triumph, didn’t have things their own way as they scraped into the last eight of their tournament on Friday on points difference, despite a last-match loss to South Africa.
Charlotte Caslick was leading the women’s team in her first tournament of the season since being awarded the World Rugby sevens player of the year award, and she helped orchestrate their three comfortable group victories, which featured 16 tries.
Seven of those came from the powerful, fleet-footed 20-year-old Levi, who’d also been on the shortlist for the world player award after her hat-trick helped sink New Zealand in the World Cup final.
In Dubai, the AFLW convert opened up with a try in the 36-7 opening win over China, a pair in the 33-0 victory over Canada and then four, including a first-half hat-trick, in a solo tour de force during the 29-12 triumph over the USA.
Madison Ashby also scored a try in each of the three matches while Faith Nathan, who on the eve of the event had become the fourth key player in quick succession to commit her future to the Australian programme, also celebrated with a try against China.
In their first tournament of the new season following their 2022 ‘triple crown’ of World Cup, season-long World Series and Commonwealth Games triumphs, the Australians showed they’ll take some stopping again as they set up a quarter-final date on Saturday with Fiji.
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Meanwhile, the Aussie men, who made a fine start to their own World Series defence with the country’s first victory in the marquee Hong Kong Sevens event for 34 years, just about negotiated a tough challenge to get through a ‘group of death’ featuring Kenya, GB and South Africa’s ‘Blitzboks’.
They were under the cosh after they could only draw 19-19 with Kenya in their opener, Maurice Longbottom coming up with a late equalising try.
They then produced their best in a 28-19 victory over the British team thanks to another bit of magic from Longbottom and other tries from Kye Oates, the stand-out Henry Hutchison and Nathan Lawson.
In the key final match against the ‘Blitzboks’, the Aussies suffered a dreadful start as Dietrich Roache saw yellow for a neck roll and was followed off by Lawson, who got penalised for a high shot.
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The South Africans took advantage with tries from Siviwe Soyizwapi and JC Pretorius but the restored Lawson and Longbottom, who struck in his third game in a row, responded with tries that left the game in the balance until Dalvon Blood sped away with the winner in the dying seconds.
The 19-12 defeat was not quite enough to eliminate Australia, who qualified for a quarter-final with USA on Saturday by having a superior points difference in their group to GB – but only by a mere two points.
– Ian Chadband
Comments on RugbyPass
🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
27 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
27 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
27 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
27 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
27 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
11 Go to comments