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‘Hats off to the Kiwis’: Australia fall to rivals at Hong Kong Sevens
By Finn Morton reporting from Hong Kong
Australia’s bid to win the highly-anticipated Cathay/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens for the first time since 2022 took an early hit on Friday evening as the men in gold fell to arch-rivals New Zealand 21-12 at Kai Tak Stadium.
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Amanaki Nicole crossed for two tries in as many minutes, and Sofai Maka also scored a first half five-pointer as the All Blacks Sevens raced out to a 21-nil lead. Ngarohi McGarvey-Black successfully converted all three tries, which piled more scoreboard pressure on the Aussies.
Aden Ekanayake and Jayden Blake hit back for the Aussies late in the piece but with a wayward shot at goal missing the mark after the second of those two tries, a nine-point lead for the New Zealanders became increasingly significant as the clock ticked closer to full-time.
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Time wasn’t on coach Liam Barry’s side as they were bested by their neighbours from across the ditch at Hong Kong China’s all-new 50,000-seat sporting Coliseum. HSBC SVNS Series veteran Josh Turner was fairly candid when talking about the errors that cost the Aussies in that clash.
“You’ve got to have the footy to win games and that first half we barely had the footy,” Turner told RugbyPass after signing some autographs for some supporters.
“Hats off to the Kiwis, they started off [well] and they played well in the first half. We tried to claw it back in the second half but it was just too late there.
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“They converted all three of their tries. We can’t give away the ball like we did in that game so we’ve got to get better there.”
Australia and New Zealand are locked on the overall SVNS Series Men’s standings on 38 points and it seems unlikely either side will catch sixth-placed France on 46. Still, this weekend’s prestigious event and next weekend’s leg in Singapore are crucial.
With the winner-takes-all World Championship at Los Angeles’s Dignity Health Sports Park on May 3-4, these final two regular season events are crucial as each team looks to learn any lessons they might need to, while proving themselves contenders and not pretenders.
“Every tournament is just as important as each other but as we get later on, every point counts towards that top eight,” Turner said.
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“We’re really pushing for it but so is every other team so onto the next game, onto South Africa next and that’s where we’ll go.”
Australia have been drawn in a tough pool in Hong Kong China with South Africa and Uruguay also vying for spots in the quarter-finals out of Pool B. South Africa claimed a commanding victory over the Uruguayans around 6:30 pm local time.
This season, Australia and South Africa have had quite the rivalry. An extra-time golden point try to youngster Aden Ekanayake comes to mind, with not much separating these teams time and time again.
“We’ve had each other, I think in every tournament so far and we’ve both come away with one-apiece each time,” he added.
“It’s always going to be a good match against South Africa. It’s basically who’s going to turn up and wants to win that game is going to win it.”
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To think NZ andAus used to be regular winners and rivals at the HK 7s back in the 80s.