Appropriately for a tournament that started on Australia Day, Australia have cleaned up at the Sydney Sevens today, winning both the women’s and men’s tournaments.
The women set a couple of records along the way – the first women’s team to win a home tournament, and more impressively the first team – men or women – not to concede a point over the entire three days.
Their scores read: 29-0, 50-0, 43-0, 29-0, 31-0 and 31-0 again. The second 31-0 was against New Zealand in the final, no mean feat in itself, but it pales into comparison when you realise that the 2016 Olympic champions scored 213 points, including 35 tries – without conceding a single digit against them.
Australia took the gold in Rio two years ago, beating New Zealand 24-17 in the final, but they never played this well.
After a poor 2016/17 by their standards, finishing second to NZ in the World Sevens series, there has been a ruthlessness and energy about Tim Walsh’s team this season, witnessed also in Dubai back in December when they won that tournament defeating the USA 34-0 in the final.
Australian Women’s Sevens coach Tim Walsh
Walsh recently announced his surprise decision to step down following the Commonwealth Games in April, after five years in charge and a winning percentage of 84 per cent, so his team are clearly determined to send him out a winner.
For the women it may have been a return to the top but for the Aussie men it was a welcome drought-breaker as they won their first leg of the World Sevens Series since Tokyo way back in 2012.
Coach Andy Friend has been rebuilding his squad over the last two seasons and this result shows his hard work is starting to pay off as they demolished the heavily favoured South Africans 29-0 in the final.
Better still for Friend, the squad is very young with nine of the 14 players in Sydney the age of 25 or under. Lachlan Anderson, the player of the final, is 20, as is Tim Anstee with new X-Factor Maurice Longbottom only 23.
New Australian x-factor Maurice Longbottom
They also beat a very strong New Zealand team in the quarter finals 24-12 as they remained undefeated over the two days.
There is much wrong with rugby union in Australia – the axing of the Force, the inconsistency of the Wallabies just to name a couple – but with both teams winning, huge crowds in attendance and a new female CEO in place, Raelene Castle, the sport can finally enjoy one weekend in the Australian sun.
