Canada have risen to fourth in the World Rugby 7s series with a bronze medal win in Hong Kong. They now have 56 points, tied with USA, with one more tournament in Singapore before the championship tournament in LA.
It wasn’t the tournament the women’s team hoped for but they finished strong, defeating USA in the 7th/8th match, 27-10, despite missing two key players due to injury, Krissy Scurfield and Piper Logan. The try scoring trio in the final match Florence Symonds, Asia Hogan-Rochester and debutant Olivia Sarabura may give a glimpse of what lays ahead for Canada with two tournaments left, Hong Kong and Singapore, before the final in LA. Asia Hogan-Rochester was probably the player of the tournament for Canada and Florence Symonds the player of the game in the USA match, Olivia Sarabura scored a crucial try to keep Canada ahead, and she had to do it one on one against the USA defender. Olivia Apps as usual was solid on both sides of the ball.
Vancouver 7s announced the schedule for the 3 day tournament. The men are playing an exhibition series against Trinidad & Tobago and Japan as part of the tournament. Canada will face each team twice over the tournament, playing them Friday and Saturday. The women start their tournament on Friday at 3:28pm against Brazil, then face Spain at 8:58pm. Their final pool game is at 3:08pm on Saturday, the women’s quarter-finals start at 7:32pm on Saturday.
Canada finished 4th in Perth, their best finish of the season to date after finishing 8th and 5th in previous tournaments. Canada now sit in 5th place, 8 points behind USA and 2 points ahead of Japan with 3 tournaments left before the final.
The Canadian women will be in a pool with USA, Great Britain and Fiji in Perth. USA sit in 4th place with a 2nd place finish in Cape Town, GB are in 5th place, Canada in 7th place and Fiji in 11th place. The top 8 teams avoid the relegation tournament in LA and compete for the title. There are 3 more tournaments after Perth and before LA, they’re Vancouver, Hong Kong and Singapore.
It’s a big improvement for Canada, going from 8th in Dubai to 5th in Cape Town. Along the way they defeated Great Britain 27-12 and Japan 22-7. Japan defeated Canada twice in Dubai, so the Cape Town result shows the growth the team have had in between tournaments. The next challenge will be Perth in January, 24-26.
Canada women lost both of their Day 2 matches, first to Australia in the quarter-finals and then to Japan in the 7th/8th playoff match. The loss to Australia was decisive 39-0, the loss to Japan was an improvement over their opening 40-5 pool loss to Japan, this time it was 24-22 with two late Canada tries closing the gap.
The question of whether Canada would still host the 7s Series in 2025, now that the men’s team are no longer part of the core group, has been answered. Yes, Vancouver will be the 4th stop on the 2025 series.
It wasn’t expected but Canada upset #2 seed Australia, 21-12, to advance to the Gold medal match. Earlier in the quarter-finals they eliminated #3 France who were expected to medal as hosts. Canada couldn’t pull off one more miracle but gave #1 seed NZ a tough match only losing 19-12 to win Silver.
Canada have named their 13 athletes for Rugby 7s at the Olympics. Only the women’s team are representing, the men didn’t qualify. One of the big stories not mentioned in the official release is that Sophie de Goede tore her ACL in training and the injury took her out of the selection pool. On the good news front Carissa Norsten has recovered from her injury and was selected for the team.