Backing up from the New Zealand Men’s Sevens victory last weekend, the New Zealand Women’s Sevens team was triumphant in their finals game at the Atlanta round of the World Series Women’s Sevens competition. This firstly means the Kiwi girls take the overall series lead, it also moves Canada up to a position where they can also threaten for series lead as well.
The Atlanta round of the series was far from smooth sailing, with snowy conditions having a massive impact on travel and training around the event. This however had little resonance throughout the weekend, with all the teams throwing themselves into their games with bone crunching tackles and brutally fast running games the theme for the weekend.
One of the encouraging features of the weekend was seeing the development in lesser known sides such as the Netherlands, who came away from the series as victors in the Bowl competition. The Netherlands came in looking for redemption after losing their core team status at the end of the 2013 series. The Dutch ladies played with an intensity and heart the belied this, and they were deserving winners of a hard fought bowl series, triumphing over the Chinese team 33-0
USA battled back from early losses to Canada and Australia to demolish the Chinese team 41-0 and book their ticket to the plate series semis. In the plate they summarily dispatched the English team to face a Spanish team who downed the Japanese 24-0. Again discipline was the order of the day, with the US players proving too strong for Spain, running in an answered 22 points to carry the silverware home.
The Cup final was perhaps one of the most eagerly anticipate of the whole series, with Canada facing the New Zealand team. Canada could not put a foot wrong the whole series, ably matching up to any team they faced. Mandy Marchak was on fire, Jen Kish was just amazing, the whole team worked as a unit, they played hard and they played with typical Canadian passion. They deserved to be in the final taking on a similarly excellent New Zealand team.
The Kiwis for their part were simply unstoppable. They were clinical, they were precise. The team call themselves ‘sisters’ and they played like a family, everyone supporting and backing up at key moments. It was simply poetry to watch, and it was an amazing team to see in action.
Canada was held scoreless in the final game, going down 36-0, however much like South Africa in the men’s finals this does not adequately show the heart and pride the Canadian women brought to the game. They came to fight, and fight they did! Mandy Marchak narrowly missed a scoring opportunity, there were many signs that this is a Canadian team that not only wants to win, they could win as well. Canada sits third on the overall table, and another performance like this could well see them jump further up in the ranks. Do not count the Red nation out, for a moment!
The teams will now rest up for a few days before heading to Brazil for the next round of the World Series Women’s Sevens in Sao Paulo on 21-22 February. As is the case with all of these Sevens games, these results are locked in the history books, but mean exactly nothing in the next round. Anyone can win this round, anyone can win this series, and that is what makes this Sevens game so damn exciting.
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Main Photo Credit: IRB.com
