Australia’s men and women face a defining day of rugby sevens in Sydney as both attempt to cash in on home soil.
Both sides’ title defences will be tested at Spotless Stadium on Saturday when the women play France in a quarter-final and the men face Argentina, Tonga and South Africa in clutch pool games.
France knocked the Olympic champions out of last year’s World Cup in the semi-finals, while the men must finish top two if they are to push for a Sunday podium and improve on their sixth-placed series ranking.
Failure to do so would put them further back in an Olympic qualifying year that sees the tournament’s top four sides earn an automatic start in Tokyo next year.
Complicating matters, particularly for a women’s side that enjoys expansive play, is the forecast of more rain on Saturday.
The return of heavy hitters Ben O’Donnell and Jesse Parahi will help Australia’s cause, although women’s coach John Manenti admitted they didn’t have the cattle to cope with the wet conditions on Friday.
Having negotiated their first two games against Spain and China, Australia were shoved aside in the first half by the United States, who held on for a 19-12 win.
“They were just big girls making two or three metres in that one off the ruck,” Manenti said.
“We’ll address that in not even 24 hours tonight and come back and try and do it better tomorrow (but) if you can have a word to the bloke upstairs to turn the taps off that’d be good.”
Sitting fourth overall, Australia’s women have a golden chance to log big points after landing on the opposite side of the draw to New Zealand.
A semi-final against Ireland or Spain awaits the winner of their quarter-final, but after a day of upsets on Friday highlighted by England’s exit Manenti isn’t getting ahead of himself.
“Ireland have knocked off teams, Canada’s been beaten, USA’s been beaten,” he said.
“There’s lots of teams that can win and whoever plays well at the right time is going to sneak through.”
Saturday Schedule:
10.28am v Argentina (men)
1.56pm v France (women’s quarter-final)
3.56pm v Tonga (men)
8.23pm v South Africa (men)
