AFTER the Lord Mayor's show… came the best Women's Sevens tournament in history and a seminal moment in the development of Women's Rugby.
A joyous tournament that excited rugby followers around the world and absolutely cemented Sevens' position as a core team sport at the modern day Olympics.
Any one of the four semi-finalists would have been worthy winners and rather wonderfully the includes the Fiji team who took bronze just five years after the women's programme was formed on their island nation. The first Olympic medals ever won by a Fijian woman.
The athletic, skilful, and gritty Fijian women lit up the competition but ultimately it was a well-drilled and very pacy New Zealand team that saved their best for last and deservedly took gold with a 26-12 win over France in the final.
Fiji meanwhile defeated Great Britain 21-12 in the third place playoff game –a tumultuous final day watched by IOC president Thomas Bach who must have been left wondering why it took his organisation so long to get rugby back into the Olympics.
It started with marginal favourites New Zealand scraping into the final with a golden point extra-time try by Gayle Broughton to beat the Fijians 22-17. A thunderous game had been levelled in the final minute of extra-time with a try by the outstanding Reapi Ulunisau.
In the other semi-final Great Britain, having made fast starts in most of their other games, were slow out of the blocks and went 14-0 down against the French before finally hitting their straps and battling all the way before going down 26-19.
The opening set of pool games on day one had been relatively uneventful save for a belter of a game match between GB and NZ in which GB had three tries on the board and a 21-0 lead inside five minutes. “There was not enough hand sanitiser in Japan to clean up all the mistakes we made,” was the memorable quote of Kiwi skipper Ruby Tui. In best New Zealand tradition, however, they stormed back to score four unanswered tries to win 26-21.
The tournament really caught fire on day two and a high octane quarter-final session for the ages, played against a backdrop of thunder, rain and occasional lightning.
It began with an exhibition of excellence from NZ as they dismissed a more than decent Russia Olympic Committee team and then came the upset of all upsets as Fiji, playing very much in the fashion of their men's teams, claimed a sensational 14-12 win over the reigning champions Australia with converted tries from Alowesei Nakoci and Ana Maris Naimas.
An absolute epic followed with England going head to head with a huge USA team that was full of great crossover athletes who had shaped up really well in their pool which they topped with a 100 per cent record, with a come-frombehind victory over Australia.
Great Britain, with Meghan Jones to the fore set their stall out defensively and produced a 14 minute tackling set the likes of which we have possibly never seen before at his level. And off the back of that they harassed and hassled the much bigger, stronger Eagles team to force the three try-scoring opportunities that came their way.
That lithe Welsh genius on the wing Jasmine Joyce went in for two and Abi Brown the other score with all three converted by the reliable Holly Aitchison. The USA meanmachine finally started to rumble after the break but GB held on 21-12.
China, for large periods of their quarter final with France, did a GB and pressurised for errors and even nipped in for a fine try from Tang Ming Lin before the French class came into play with a brace of tries for the outstanding Séraphine Okemba and scores for Caroline Drouin and Anne-Cécile Ciofani.
China nonetheless had the last word with a second try from Tang Ming Lin which was a contender for try of the tournament.
An absolutely riveting tournament, rugby of the highest quality, with the mix of old world powers and emerging nations and underdogs competing, for once, pretty much on a level playing field.
