England snatched victory after the full-time hooter to upset New Zealand 19-17 in the final of the third leg of the International Rugby Board Sevens series yesterday.
It was a dramatic fightback by England who had trailed 0-17 before halftime.
But they clawed their way back into the game to stun the capacity 35,000 mainly partisan New Zealand crowd who had prematurely started celebrating in the stands before the final whistle.
PHOTO: AP
Tries to Ollie Phillips and Rob Vickerman reduced the gap to 12-17. At the hooter, with both sides reduced to six men, England mounted a 60m attack that ended with Isoa Damudamu crossing the line to level the score.
Ben Gollings, the most prolific scorer in the 10-year history of the tournament, calmly added the conversion to give England the title.
“It’s been a long time coming,” the elated English veteran said as his side pocketed their first title in Wellington.
New Zealand captain D.J. Forbes was devastated.
“We led all the way and to stuff it up like that was heartbreaking,” he said.
South Africa, who made a dream start to this season’s championship, winning the first two tournaments, were knocked out in the quarter-finals after losing a tense clash with New Zealand 0-7.
But they bounced back to win the plate final and take eight points from the competition to remain at the head of the table on 48, four points clear of England and New Zealand on 44.
England did not look likely tournament winners on the opening day of the tournament, finishing second in Pool C after losing to Argentina.
They started the second day in similar fashion and trailed regular Sevens stars Fiji 5-10 at halftime in their quarter-final, before emerging after the break a far more determined outfit.
They piled on 26 points against the Fijians to win their first knockout match 31-10 and then beat tournament giant-killers Kenya 24-0 in the semi-finals.
But in the opening stages of the final it was all New Zealand, starting with a try to Paul Grant.
When England mounted a charge, Tom Biggs was cut down just short of the line and New Zealand counterattacked with an end-to-end move that resulted in a try to Zar Lawrence.
New Zealand captain Forbes, playing with a lower leg hairline fracture, scored his side’s third try in the eighth minute.
But England refused to roll over and their four-try comeback earned them the title of the best attacking side of the tournament, scoring 23 tries in all, while Phillips was the leading individual try scorer with seven.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier