RUGBY SEVENS: The Australian men’s and women’s rugby sevens sides had an excellent start to the AYOF tournament on Friday morning.

The men’s side began its campaign in fine fashion, overcoming a tough Tongan outfit 21-12.

Bill Valetini opened the scoring within the first 2 minutes of the match for Australia which was then quickly followed up with a second Australian try only a few minutes later to Harry Jones.

Tonga hit back, however, engineering a strong play up the middle of the field to score under the posts, taking the half-time score to 14-7.

The start of the second half began at a bit of a slower rate than the first, however Australia were first to add to the tally with captain Jack Tuttle crossing over giving his side a 12-point lead.

Tonga got a consolation try on the bell leaving the full-time score 21-12.

The Australian women’s side had a convincing win in their first match of the tournament, hammering South Africa 52-7.

Incredibly, there were seven different try scorers for the Australian side with Tiana Penitani instrumental crossing over for a double and setting up another.

In other matches, Japan and China had convincing wins in the women’s draw and Japan defeated China in the opening men’s match 34-5.

Toby Plowman
Olympics.com.au

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