RUGBY SEVENS: Australian women’s rugby sevens team booked its place in tomorrow evening’s Cup Quarter-Finals after its second dominant performance of the day to beat Fiji 36-0.
Once again, the Aussies were on the front foot from the outset opening the scoring after just 51 seconds through Emilee Cherry after fine work from Charlotte Caslick and Chloe Dalton.
Emma Tonegato extended her side's lead with a clinical finish in the left corner before Caslick spotted the smallest of chinks in the Fijian defence to streak clear and dot down for the fourth try of a fruitful day. Speed merchant Ellia Green proved too strong as she scored on the right wing to open her Rio 2016 account.
Wollongong flyer Tonegato added yet another five-pointer to put the game beyond doubt and Chloe Dalton scored her team’s sixth try of the game and seal a convincing win.
“The physios did a great job to get me back onto the field and I’m confident on it now," Cherry, who was under a bit of an injury cloud with a hamstring problem earlier in the week, said.
She said her side's performance on Day 1 came from good preparation.
“We’ve just been keeping everything as normal as possible. Today we enjoyed ourselves and we play our best footy we’re relaxed," she said.
“It was good going out there against Colombia and getting minutes in and that gave us confidence going into the Fiji game. We saw them against the USA and they were just so physical – we just had to lift that area of our game.
“To go out there and keep them to nil was a really big effort by all of us and we managed to dominate possession from start to finish.”
The two-try Tonegato said her team is relishing the atmosphere and conditions at Deodoro Stadium.
“The field is really good, it’s a dry track, really fast and the feeling out there is great. We have a lot of support in the crowd – a lot of our family here – you might have heard them in the crowd and it is great to have them here supporting us.”
Earlier in the day, Tim Walsh’s side defeated Colombia 53-0 in their opening fixture at Rio 2016.
Australia play USA in their third and final match in Pool A on Sunday 8 August, (Monday 2.30am AEST) with the Cup quarter finals less than four hours later.
There were few shocks on Day 1 of the women’s rugby sevens competition with New Zealand, Great Britain, France and Canada all winning both games today to qualify for the Cup Quarter-Finals.
Final score: Australia 36 (T: Cherry, Tonegato 2, Caslick, Green, Dalton; C: Dalton 3) Fiji 0