{"id":1456,"date":"2016-03-07T00:50:06","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T00:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=1456"},"modified":"2016-03-27T00:57:09","modified_gmt":"2016-03-27T00:57:09","slug":"world-rugby-sevens-fiji-win-usa-tournament-beating-australia-21-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=1456","title":{"rendered":"World Rugby Sevens: Fiji win USA tournament, beating Australia 21-15"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"fiji<\/a>Fiji have scored a length-of-the-field try and turned the tables on Australia\u00a0in the final minutes of the USA Sevens final in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

Australian Quade\u00a0Cooper looked all but certain to score with three minutes remaining and Australia one point clear, but the ball was stripped.<\/p>\n

Fiji’s\u00a0Savenaca\u00a0Rawaca\u00a0then\u00a0picked the ball and ran the length of the field\u00a0to score the match\u00a0defining five-pointer in a phase that began in Fiji’s goal line,\u00a0sealing a\u00a021-15 victory.<\/p>\n

The last time Australia has qualified for consecutive World Series\u00a0finals was in 2010 at London and\u00a0Edinburgh –\u00a0a\u00a0team\u00a0that included the likes of Nick\u00a0Phipps and Bernard Foley.<\/p>\n

After racing to a 15-0 lead within\u00a0five minutes, Australia had no answers to the\u00a0Fijians’ classy style of play as they\u00a0put on 21 unanswered points to crush Australia’s hopes of claiming its\u00a0maiden world title this season.<\/p>\n

Three tries in the first five minutes blew the Flying Fijians off the park as they struggled to gain possession against an Australian side with a point to prove under coach Andy Friend, who has now taken them to consecutive finals after his\u00a0side’s effort at the\u00a0Sydney Sevens\u00a0last month.<\/p>\n

Cooper was injected midway through the first half, but he and his Australian teammates put in a remarkable defensive effort to keep the Fijians scoreless for an entire 10-minute first half.<\/p>\n

On the back of a thrilling 14-12 in the semi-finals against South Africa\u00a0– which included a penalty try awarded\u00a0in the dying seconds \u2013Sam Myers put Australian in the lead early, crossing for a try within the first two minutes before skipper Ed Jenkins helped extend the lead to 10-0 with a few handy fends.<\/p>\n

The Fijians were unable to spread the ball to either side of the field with the same potency as the Australians, but hit back after the break, reducing the deficit to 15-7 before scoring in again to go within one point.<\/p>\n

Conversions were tough to come by though\u00a0for the Australians with\u00a0howling winds making\u00a0it a nightmare to kick straight, particularly given the Thunderbolts’ tries were all scored out wide.<\/p>\n

It was also the first time since 2001 Australia has come up\u00a0against the Flying Fijians\u00a0– a side who have been the benchmark in sevens rugby for a\u00a0number of years – in a final,\u00a0a game which Australia won\u00a019-17 in Wellington.<\/p>\n

Fiji’s Osea\u00a0Kolinisau\u00a0was named man of the match.<\/p>\n

Source: SMH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fiji have scored a length-of-the-field try and turned the tables on Australia\u00a0in the final minutes…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[5,9,10,3,33,2],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/fiji-beat.jpg",620,349,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/fiji-beat-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/fiji-beat-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/fiji-beat.jpg",620,349,false],"large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/fiji-beat.jpg",620,349,false],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/fiji-beat.jpg",620,349,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/fiji-beat.jpg",620,349,false],"enternews-featured":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/fiji-beat.jpg",620,349,false],"enternews-medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/fiji-beat.jpg",620,349,false],"enternews-thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/fiji-beat.jpg",480,270,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Stories<\/a>","tag_info":"Stories","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1458,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456\/revisions\/1458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}