You just know this one felt good for the Aussies after what happened last summer.
Leading 12-0 at half-time over the Langford-based Canadian team in the women’s rugby sevens semifinals of the 2024 Paris Olympics, they were the victims of a 21-12 Canadian rally that still stings.
The Australians gained a measure of revenge on Saturday by beating sa国际传媒 26-10 in the Cape Town Sevens tournament, following up their win over the Canadians last week in the Dubai Sevens.
Paris Olympics silver medallist sa国际传媒 opened the Cape Town Sevens with a 43-17 win over Brazil as University of Victoria Vikes player and Paris Olympian Carissa Norsten and former UVic star and 2020 Tokyo Olympian Pamphinette Buisa scored tries in the first minute to get sa国际传媒 started.
Asia Hogan-Rochester and Buisa scored tries against Australia Saturday but it wasn’t enough.
sa国际传媒 goes to the fifth-place semi-finals this morning against Great Britain in the new format installed for the Cape Town tournament in which pool winners automatically advance to the semifinals, with teams finishing second in their pool going to the fifth-place semifinals, and those finishing last in their pools playing in the ninth-place semifinals.
Australia will play the Americans, who beat the Aussies in the Olympic bronze-medal game in Paris, in one semifinal while two-time defending Olympic-champion New Zealand plays France in the other.
Only four medallists from the Paris Olympics are on the Canadian roster in Cape Town — Norsten, Hogan-Rochester, Piper Logan and UVic Vikes alumnus Shalaya Valenzuela.
Making their senior international debuts last weekend in Dubai and carrying on this weekend in Cape Town are Adia Pye of Victoria, a two-sport basketball and rugby star out of Claremont Secondary, and UVic player Maya Addai as the Canadian team looks to retool on the road to Los Angeles.
“We are proud of our performance at the Paris Olympics, but to stay near the top, we need to solidify our foundations and keep the program successful over the next four years leading to the 2028 Olympic Games,” new Canadian head coach Jocelyn Barrieau said in a statement.
The 2025 World Series will resume Down Under with the Perth Sevens on Jan. 24-26. The sa国际传媒 Sevens will be held Feb. 21-23 at sa国际传媒 Place.
The Canadian men’s sevens team won the North American and Caribbean play-in tournament last month in Trinidad and Tobago by going undefeated.
It earned sa国际传媒 the regional berth into the 2025 World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger Series, with the first-two rounds featuring 12 national sides March 1-2 and 7-8 in Cape Town.
The top eight teams from there will advance to the third round April 11-12 in Krakow, Poland.
The top-four teams from Krakow will earn berths into the promotion-relegation play-off to take place May 3-4 at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.
There, four spots into the top-tier HSBC World Series for 2026 will be on the line in a tournament that will also include the bottom four teams from 2025.
The Canadian men’s sevens team was 2020 Olympic quarter-finalist at Tokyo but faced a rebuild following the retirements of foundational players such as Connor Braid of Victoria, UVic Vikes legend Nathan Hirayama and Harry Jones of North Vancouver.
Canadian head coach Sean White of Victoria, through the Challenger Series, is trying to navigate sa国际传媒 back into the top tier of nations.
