Pearls fall just short in sevens thriller against New Zealand

Kurt Fearnley told Australia’s women’s sevens team to give everything in the final. They did, but fell agonisingly short.

Australia’s Ellia Green passes out of a tackle during the gold medal match against New Zealand at Robina Stadium yesterday. Picture: AAP

It was the wheelchair inspiration Kurt Fearnley who presented the jerseys to the Australian women’s seven rugby team for their Commonwealth Games gold medal match against New Zealand yesterday and his advice was simple: “Give it everything you’ve got.”

Earlier in the day, Fearnley had followed his own advice and won gold in the marathon. The Pearls took his words to heart and also gave it everything but, alas, everything wasn’t quite enough. One of the most dramatic sevens matches ever played ended with the Robina Stadium crowd giving both teams a standing ovation, but it was the Kiwis they hailed as champions after a 17-12 win, six agonising minutes into extra-time.

“Our players were legless out there,” Australia captain Shannon Parry said. “As a skipper, you couldn’t ask for anything more from your players than what we had out there today. But credit has to go to New Zealand. We gave them too many possessions but they were probably the form team of the weekend, to be honest.”

Tim Walsh, the coach who took them to a historic Olympic medal at the Rio Olympics 18 months ago and for whom yesterday’s epic contest was his last match with them before moving on to the Australian men’s team, admitted that even over time his players wouldn’t see that they had made an outstanding contribution to a game that will do wonders for the global spread of women’s sevens.

“Probably not,” he said with a wry chuckle. “It was an amazing game. It was adrenalin, on the edge-of-your-seat stuff, 12-0, 12-12 (after Emily Cherry and Ellia Green had scored two second-half tries to level the scores). So it was a really good spectacle for the sport. It’s nice to take that away from it. But we would have preferred the win.”

The two sides were locked together 12-12 at the end of normal time after Cassie Staples inexplicably kicked the ball into the crowd when Australia were in possession and, more importantly, in command of the match.

The crowd was stunned into silence and Parry, who was on the sideline at the time, asked her players about it afterwards. The word was that Staples had heard her teammates say “Have a crack” but, with the crowd roaring, had misinterpreted what they had said as “Kick it out”. Yet both Parry and Walsh were adamant that this was just one of a host of mistakes the Australians had made.

Nonetheless, that forced the two sides to dig deep and summon up reserves of energy and courage to play five minutes of extra-time in the first Commonwealth Games women’s rugby final staged. And, disappointingly for Australia, they had to play it without their talismanic playmaker, Charlotte Caslick, who was forced off just before halftime with a head knock.

Both sides began nervously, as though realising a single mistake could cost them gold — which, essentially, was a fair reading of the state of play.

The Kiwis knocked on, then the Aussies. It looked as though Australia’s Vani Pelete was headed to the line but she was hunted down by Niall Williams, the sister of All Black Sonny Bill Williams. Then it was the turn of the Australians to defend and in tackle after crunching tackle it seemed as though they would force a mistake from New Zealand.

Portia Woodman was almost taken into touch but somehow managed to keep the ball in play. Finally the ball came back to Kelly Brazier and three Australians converged on her. But she jinked this way and that and suddenly found herself in the clear with the tryline a distant 50m in front of her.

She set out with all the speed she could muster, pursued by two Australians but the only realistic hope of making the covering tackle was Darling Downs 20-year-old Dominique du Toit. She ran herself into the ground but in the end Brazier lurched to the line as the New Zealanders somehow found the energy to wrap her in a victory hug.

Du Toit was inconsolable, sobbing on the field. She soon was joined by all her teammates. The Australian team does a lot of crying, in good times and bad and Walsh is all for it.

For New Zealand, however, who had brooded since 2016 over their historic defeat to Australia in the first Olympic sevens final in Rio, revenge was sweet.

Meanwhile, England hung on to win the bronze 24-19 against a fast-finishing Canada.