They won five of six tournaments on their way to a dominant fifth-straight title last season, but New Zealand had to be content with fifth place in Dubai as their HSBC World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series season got off to a shaky start in the UAE.
The worst finish for Allan Bunting’s side last season was third in Sydney, but the Black Ferns endured a quarter-final exit yesterday, beaten after the hooter 14-12 by the USA, who had also defeated them in the semi-finals Down Under in February to ruin their perfect season.
And it was Richie Walker’s women who again scuppered their path to glory yesterday, Kelsi Stockert touching down following a New Zealand mistake at the death and Leyla Alev Kelter’s nerveless conversion earning a two point victory.
That was in stark contrast to the 45-14 hammering handed out to them by the same opponents less than 24 hours earlier in the pool stages.
Black Ferns skipper Sarah Goss insisted her side hadn’t underestimated the US following that handsome victory on Thursday, and said defeat would make them “look deeper” into what went wrong and how to improve in time for Sydney, the second leg of the new campaign, in January.
“We obviously had the ball and gave it away and they scored after the hooter, so there were a few key moments,” said Goss when asked what went wrong.
“But it’s alright, I’m still proud of the effort of the girls. I know they’ve worked hard and I know we’ll come back bigger and stronger from that.
“We definitely didn’t think we were going to have it easy. We’ve had some tough matches against them (the US) before and it’s a quarter-final in Dubai so we know they were going to throw everything at us.
“Like I said there were a few key moments where we let ourselves down and they scored at the end to win the game.
“In the other five games we put a lot of points on teams and we had to defend a lot against the US. Potentially that let us down, trying to keep hold of possession. If you don’t have the ball you can’t score tries and it showed as we didn’t win that game.”
They certainly didn’t lack any attacking prowess in Dubai, the Ferns also scoring 40 in a 40-0 demolition of South Africa on Thursday.
They beat France 28-7 and then whitewashed David Courteix’s side in the fifth-placed final yesterday – New Zealand suffering the ignominy of being shunted outside the main stadium onto Pitch 2 for their last two games of the weekend (they trounced Spain 43-0 in the fifth place semi-final).
Portia Woodman crossed for a hat-trick in a 24-0 victory, Michaela Blyde dotting down for the other try against France.
“We’re obviously a bit disappointed with that quarter-final. We came back to win the last two games so that was really pleasing for us,” added Goss, who will now head home to enjoy the Christmas holidays before getting back to action early in the new year.
“The girls have worked really hard and now we can go home and enjoy some time with family and friends before Sydney.
“It’s difficult to gauge where you and opponents are in the first tournament of the new season. That loss makes us look a little deeper into why it happened so we’ll be doing a big review.
“But it’s Christmas when we get home so we’ll definitely be enjoying that with our families before restarting for a big year next year.”
