The New Zealand women’s sevens rugby team suffered a surprise 17-12 defeat in their semi-final against Australia.
New Zealand, the Olympic and defending Commonwealth Games champions, led 12-5 at halftime. Four minutes into the second spell they still led 12-10, but it was clear the Australians were coming back at them.
For New Zealand Portia Woodman and Theresa Fitzpatrick scored tries and Tyla Nathan-Wong converted one of them. However, that scoring was more than negated by Australian speedster Maddison Levi, who scored three tries in a match-winning performance.
New Zealand coach Cory Sweeney described the loss as hugely disappointing.
“We weren’t right on our game. We turned over a bit of ball at breakdowns and that led to a couple of tries.”
He said his players stood up and gave it everything, but weren’t quite good enough.
“It’s fine margins, but the Aussies are a good team and they took their opportunities.”
In their early match, the New Zealand women breezed past England 38-7 with tries to Shiray Kaka, captain Sarah Hirini, the prolific Michaela Blyde (2), Risaleaana Pouri-Lane and Jazmin Hotham. Nathan-Wong converted three and Pouri-Lane added another. New Zealand led 21-7 at halftime.
The New Zealand women now meet Canada in the bronze medal match after Canada were beaten 24-7 by Fiji in the other semi-final.
The New Zealand men moved comfortably into the semi-finals when they beat Kenya 31-0 after leading 12-0 at halftime.
There were tries for New Zealand by Scott Curry, Dylan Collier, Regan Ware (2) and Ngarohi McGarvey-Black, who also kicked three conversions.
Earlier the New Zealand men took a while to get on top of England, but cleared out in the second half to score a decisive win. It was only 5-0 to New Zealand at halftime, but their pace and variety told later in the game and they won 20-0.
There were tries by Caleb Tangitau, Joe Webber and Che Clarke (2).