Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Australia’s brilliant rugby sevens women are on course for a winner-takes-all clash with their great New Zealand rivals in France to decide who’ll finish the season as world champions.
But the men’s team have missed out on their chance for global glory, having been knocked out of their event on Saturday by the hosts in their quarter-final in Bordeaux.
The women’s side, even without their injured player-of-the-year contender Maddison Levi, marched unbeaten into the semi-finals of the last of the three-leg world championship series, earning a hard-fought 14-0 win over Spain in the quarters.
They’ll be warm favourites to beat USA in the semis on Sunday, and are on collision course again to meet their fellow world championship contenders New Zealand, who’ll play Canada on the other side of the draw.
The odds are that the trans-Tasman rivals, who’ve absolutely dominated the world series events this season, will meet in yet another final — but this showdown would be the biggest of all as it would decide the destination of the world title.
Victory for Australia, who have a two-point advantage over the Silver Ferns after beating them in last week’s second-leg final in Valladolid, Spain, would leave them as the season’s global champions, but a New Zealand victory, with their superior points difference, would give them the crown.
Both teams feel they’ll need to up their game after they laboured to make the semis, with New Zealand beating Japan 35-22 in their last-eight clash.
Australia, who’d earlier beaten the Japanese more convincingly 35-7 in their final pool match of the season with Demi Kennewell, Kahli Henwood, Madi Ashby, the exceptional Teagan Levi and Kaitlin Shave all going over for tries, struggled in a scoreless first half against Spain.
But Heidi Dennis eventually cracked the defensive line to put the Aussies ahead and co-captain Isabella Nasser produced a crucial turnover to keep the Spanish at bay before Henwood went over on the siren to complete the win.
Maddison Levi has been with the team on the bench, but hasn’t been used yet after she suffered injury last weekend, but there’s still the prospect she could be unleashed on Sunday.
“Just pure grit got us the win, our basic skills let us down and if we’re going to go in like that tomorrow, who knows what happens?” admitted co-captain Ashby.
“I’m glad we got that out the way now so we can come back tomorrow and just give it our all.
“It’s always good to get the ugliness out before the big games start. I’m excited to play the USA tomorrow and can’t wait.”
The Australian men had also given themselves an outside shot of the world title after their triumph in Valladolid, but they’ve not looked the same team this weekend, falling to France 26-0 in their quarter final.
Earlier in the day, they’d got into the last-eight with a narrow 12-10 victory over Spain, thanks to Ben Dowling’s first-half try double.
