After 20 action-packed matches at the Trusts Arena in Waitakere, Auckland, the finalists for both the men and women’s Oceania Sevens tournaments were all but decided.
The men’s quarter final draw has been decided based on Day 1 pool results while in the women’s tournament one round remains to determine who will play in the semi-finals of that event on Day 2.
In the men’s tournament Australia and an improved Samoa, two of the senior teams in the event, are on target to meet in the final and fight it out for the one automatic Olympic qualifying place. Both were unbeaten on Day 1 and clearly looked the best two sides in the tournament. Tonga and Papua New Guinea looked the next best teams and on form should be semi-finalists.
Australia beat Nauru 62-0, Cook Islands 48-7 and Tonga 49-0 conceding just one try in the process. However Samoa was equally impressive in beating Solomon Islands 45-0, American Samoa 50-0 and Papua New Guinea 41-7.
Samoa’s coach Damian Magraff declared after the Day 1 action, “We started slowly and simply but really built into the day in terms of our performance which pleased me and we finished really strong. Tomorrow is key obviously. Australia showed their mettle at the end of the day with an impressive win over Tonga who I thought would push them closer. Australia are the team to beat and I hope we bring our ‘A’ game tomorrow as we will need it to compete against them.”
One of the up and coming teams in Oceania and crowd favourites Nauru were playing in their first ever international tournament and while they did not win a game enjoyed the experience.
Coach Dargan Kaierua declared, “It was tough today but we knew it would be. We are minnows at this level and it is a steep learning curve and we were in the deep end today so to speak. It is the only way to learn and we have to play at this level to improve.”
“We played against professionals today in the Australian team and that was a great learning experience for the team. We will take that experience back with us and try to understand how we can improve for the future.”
Men’s Quarterfinal draw
- Tonga v Solomon Islands
- Samoa v Nauru
- Papua New Guinea v Cook Islands
- Australia v American Samoa