The New Zealand women's sevens team have won gold at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games with a thrilling 17-12 extra time golden point win over Olympic champions Australia in the final.
Kelly Brazier scoring the winning try for New Zealand Photo: © Copyright Andrew Cornaga / www.photosport.nz Photosport Ltd 2018
The Black Ferns sevens are the inaugural Commonwealth Games champions, with women's sevens included in the Games programme for the first time.
New Zealand were the first to score, with flying winger Portia Woodman beating three Australian defenders in a scorching 60 metre run to the tryline.
The Black Ferns sevens then extended their advantage after a long passage of play, with Michaela Blyde dotting down on the right hand flank, to give New Zealand a 12-nil lead at half-time.
Australia were the first to score after the break, making the most of a poor New Zealand lineout to cut the Black Fern sevens lead to 12-7.
The hosts then capitalised on another New Zealand error to score near the posts, but Australia missed the conversion to leave the scores locked at 12-all with less than a minute remaining.
Neither side could break the deadlock with the game going to golden point extra time, where the first team to score any points wins.
The teams traded blows for the length of the five minutes of extra time but no-one could score, before New Zealand's Kelly Brazier broke from inside her 22 metre line and outsprinted the Australian defence to score the gold medal winning try, over a minute and a half after the first extra time period had finished.
The win avenges the 2016 Olympic silver medallist's loss to Australia in the final in Rio.
- RNZ