The New Zealand men’s sevens team were knocked out of the Olympic medal hunt when they were upset 14-7 by South Africa in the first of the evening quarter-finals.
The result was particularly disappointing for the New Zealanders because the previous day they’d beaten the South Africans 17-5 in pool play.
With the pressure on, New Zealand made too many errors, including a couple of vital knock-ons.
South Africa began strongly when Selvyn Davids scored after four minutes. Worse followed three minutes later when Davids, who had a tremendous game, kicked the ball downfield, gathered skillfully and handed a pass to Tristan Leyds, who dotted down.
That left New Zealand reeling 14-0 behind.
They kept themselves in the game with a try in the final play of the first half. Two minutes into overtime, Moses Leo sprinted down the left to score. The conversion that followed left the score at 14-7 at the break.
New Zealand could make no progress in the second half and in fact it was South Africa who went closest to scoring when Shilton van Wyk knocked on over the New Zealand line.
There was a moment of hope when Akuila Rokolisoa looked likely to score but was brought down by frantic South African defence.
It was a galling result for New Zealand, the silver medallists at the Tokyo Olympics. They went into this event ranked third in the world to South Africa’s seventh.
Earlier in the day, New Zealand pulled off a great escape in their final pool match, against Ireland.
Needing a victory to avoid meeting mighty Fiji in the quarter-finals, New Zealand trailed 12-0 at halftime, but converted tries by Leroy Carter and, right on time, Ngarohi McGarvey-Black, got them home 14-12.
New Zealand captain Dylan Collier seemed stunned after the South Africa game. "It's extremely disappointing," he said, "especially after the way we started the tournament.
"We gave them a head start in the first half and they did well to hang on."
Collier felt his team hadn't executed their skills well enough. "We were on 'D' [defence] for long periods, but still had our chances, right up to the last lineout of the game.
"There's no doubt this one hurts a lot."
New Zealand will play Argentina tomorrow in one of the 5-8 play-off matches.