The Fijiana women's team after they defeated Samoa in Brisbane on Sunday and qualified for the 2025 Rugby World Cup. Photo: Oceania Rugby
Fijiana qualify for 2025 World Cup
The Fijiana women's rugby team have qualified for the Women's Rugby World Cup 2025, following their 27-13 win over Samoa in Brisbane on Sunday evening.
Fiji proved too strong for the 2023 champions, to claim the win in the final round of the Oceania Rugby Women's Championships.
The Fijians ended the event unbeaten, also accounting for Tonga and Papua New Guinea in earlier matches.
Meanwhile, Tonga defeated PNG 39-5 in the other game on Sunday.
Fiji's vice-captain, Merewai Cumu, expressed her gratitude, and told Oceania Rugby they had worked hard for the win.
"We've been preparing well just for this tournament for us to qualify," she said.
"I'd like to thank the girls for a job well done for today and the coaching staff for trusting us throughout the whole tournament. We've had our ups and downs but I thank God for giving us the strength to keep fighting."
Cumu said the players, most of whom had played together for the Fijiana Drua in the Super W competition, had bonded well.
"I can say that the bond of the team is really strong. And you can see during the game, we play our own style and we've trusted each other," she said.
"We've just been training for this tournament, to win this competition so that we can qualify for the World Cup.
"We knew that it wasn't going to be easy and that Samoa was going to come hard at us and you can see that just a few moments ago. I'm proud of the girls for keep fighting until the final whistle."
Members of the Fijiana women's rugby team celebrating their win over Samoa in Brisbane on Sunday. Photo: Fiji Rugby
Samoan captain Sui Pauraisa said they were disappointed with the loss.
They had defeated Fiji at the same event last year.
"We're feeling really disappointed but we've talked about this before and we've got another chance in Dubai to go again and hopefully we will be in the World Cup next year because I know Samoa deserves to be in there," she said.
"Our girls have only just met together and trained just for a week leading up to this competition, so I'm very proud of our girls and to be able to play and hold on in the last 10 minutes with 13 players is really big."
Tonga wins one game
Meanwhile, Tonga managed to end the competition with one win, after beating PNG in their third game.
They had lost previously to Fiji and Samoa.
Captan Vineta Teutau said they keep on learning.
"The positives out of this match were that the last two games we really couldn't execute our structure but in this game we did pretty well in doing that," she said.
Papua New Guinea, despite their challenges, showed resilience and determination.
Their captain, Joanne Lagona, said they had a tough tournament.
Against Tonga she said it was their defence that let them down.
"We made a lot of mistakes in the first half and then we went in at half time and we talked about defending because the first half, our defence was not good and they scored a few tries," she added.
Oceania Rugby said the tournament was a good one, with the growth of women's rugby on display.
"The 2024 Oceania Rugby Women's Championships not only highlighted the competitive spirit of the teams but also underscored the growth and potential of women's rugby in the region," they said in a statement.
"Fiji's consistent performance throughout the tournament secured them a direct qualification spot for the Rugby World Cup 2025 in England. Both Fiji and Samoa will also compete in the WXV 3 competition later this year, providing further opportunities to showcase their skills on the international stage.
"The final round matches saw the Sunnybank Rugby Union Club field packed out as supporters came out in numbers to watch their teams. The thrilling encounters have set a high standard for future competitions and have been a celebration of women's rugby."
Samoa out of world sevens series
The Samoa men's sevens team have lost out of being a core team in the annual HSBC World Rugby Sevens series.
The team lost 40-21 to the United States of America in the Sevens Challenge playoff in Madrid on Sunday night (NZ time).
Their spot has been claimed by Kenya, who with Uruguay, return to the 2025 series.
In the women's competition China joins the core teams for the new season.
Fiji finish with bronze in Madrid
The Fiji men's sevens team defeated New Zealand 17-10 at the Madrid Sevens this morning (NZ Time) to claim the bronze medal.
It was the second win for the side against their strong rival at the event, having defeated the Kiwis 28-26 on Saturday morning in a pool game.
The Fijiana 7s team won seventh position, thrashing Great Britain 42-7 in their play-off.
France won the men's final, beating Argentina 19-5, while Australia claimed the women's title.
Fiji fell to France 21-14 in the first semifinal at the Madrid 7s.
Waisea Nacuqu opened the scoring but France responded with a try to Rayan Rebbadj, breaking away from the defense.
Iowane Teba scored Fiji's second to give them a 14-7 lead at halftime.
But Rebbadj dotted down for France's second try to equalize 14-all, before Joseph Jefferson Lee busted the Fijian defence to score the team's third try.
The tournament was the final rehearsal for the 11 teams that have qualified for the Paris Olympics.
Sevens rugby will kick-off the Olympic Games at the Stade de France on July 24.
The 12th teams in both the men's and women's competition will be decided at a final qualifying event in Monaco this month.
France and Australia win titles
In Madrid, at the end of what Word Rugby called "the most drama-filled, high stakes rugby sevens event in history", France men and Australia women were crowned HSBC Sevens 2024 Champions at the inaugural Grand Final.
France will enter their home Olympic Games full of confidence after a stunning 19-5 victory over Argentina in the men's final, denying the HSBC SVNS 2024 League Winners the double in Madrid.
Having broken their 19-year cup drought with their victory in Vancouver, France scored two second half tries to seal victory as Argentina's Rodrigo Isgro was shown a late red card for an illegal tackle.
A resurgent Fiji beat New Zealand for the second time this weekend to win bronze, equalling their best result of the season with the Olympics on the horizon.
Australia claimed the women's title as a Maddison Levi hattrick helped her side beat France 26-7 for their first cup win since Cape Town in December.
Australia, who were HSBC SVNS League frontrunners almost all season before losing out to arch rivals New Zealand at the last round in Singapore, were the outstanding team all weekend in Madrid, seeing off New Zealand 21-19 in a thrilling semi-final comeback.
The Blacks Ferns Sevens would go on to beat Canada 26-14 to secure the bronze medal, revenge for their loss to the same opponents in the pool stage.
The newly introduced promotion and relegation Play Off competition featured teams ranked ninth to twelfth in SVNS 2024 competing with the top four teams from the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2024.
In the men's HSBC SVNS Play-Offs, Samoa and Canada lost their places on the HSBC SVNS series as the USA and Spain retained their own with victories. Kenya and Uruguay will join them after successfully gaining promotion from the Challenger Series with wins over Germany and Chile respectively.
The women's play-offs saw China victorious and they will replace South Africa on the SVNS Series next season as the newcomers defeated Belgium 33-0 in their qualifier final, while South Africa fell to a 22-0 defeat at the hands of hosts Spain. Brazil produced a dominant performance to beat Poland 38-7 while Japan overcame Argentina 26-12 to retain their places on HSBC SVNS 2025.
The losing teams from the Play Off will enter the regional qualification pathway for the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2025.
A noisy and enthusiastic crowd of more than 50,000 fans were treated to a feast of entertainment on and off the pitch over three days at the famous Civitas Metropolitano Stadium, home of Athletico Madrid.
The Madrid Sevens action brings down the curtain on an epic inaugural HSBC SVNS, which featured seven regular-season events in Dubai, Cape Town, Perth, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Singapore and resulted in Argentina and New Zealand becoming men's and women's league winners, before the new standalone Grand Final in Madrid.
Drua players Etonia Waqa (left) and Mesake Vocevoce celebrate their win over the Rebels with fans in Lautoka on Saturday. Photo: Fijian Drua
Drua wins and lines up Blues in Super Rugby quarters
Captain Meli Derenalagi believes the Fijian Drua showed they can win and win well if they are determined to, following the team's 40-19 win over the Rebels in Lautoka on Saturday.
He told the media at the post-match conference they had looked at what they did wrong against the Highlanders the weekend earlier and worked hard on rectifying those mistakes.
He said they were also aware that a loss would mean the end of the 2024 Super Rugby Pacific season.
"This is massive," he said.
"We looked at our weaknesses from last week, and this week, in today's game, the boys gave their all because we knew it's a do-or-die game."
Derenalagi says the bigger challenge, of facing the Blues in the quarterfinals, lies ahead.
"We will need to gear up for that," he said.
The Fijian Drua will meet the Blues on Eden Park at 7.05pm (NZ Time) on Saturday.
It will be another tough test for the Mick Bryne coached Drua, who have not won any away-game this season.
In the other quarterfinals, the Chiefs host the Reds, the Hurricanes play the Rebels, and the Brumbies have the Highlanders at home.
Final Round 15 results: Crusaders 43 - Moana Pasifika 10, Reds 27 Waratahs 26, Fijian Drua 40 Rebels 19, Huricanes 41 Highlanders 14, Blues 31 Chiefs 17, Brumbies 24 Force 19.
The PNG Barramundis in their game against the West Indies. Photo: Cricket PNG Photo: Cricket PNG
Barramundis in close loss to West Indies
The Papua New Guinea Barramundis lost by five wickets to the West Indies in their first game at the ICC Men's T20 World Cup onm Guyana this morning (Monday).
West Indies scored 137 for five while PNG managed 136 for 8 in a tight game.
The Barramundis' Sese Bau recorded a miletsone in the game, scoring 50 runs.
Roston Chase and Andre Russell calmed West Indies' fears as they successfully chased down a target of 137.
Papua New Guinea had set a reasonable target for them to chase, thanks mostly to Bau who led the recovery after losing two early wickets to muster 136/8.
In the response, West Indies were perhaps not as assured as they would have liked.
Alei Nao had struck in the second over, removing Johnson Charles (lbw for a duck) - and could have had another had he opted to review another lbw shout three balls later, this one against Nicholas Pooran, which ball-tracking showed would have hit the stumps.
Brandon King made some in-roads, scoring 34 off 29 balls before his skied shot was caught by Lega Siaka off the bowling of captain Assad Vala.
Earlier, he had had able assistance from Nicholas Pooran, who had added a valuable 27 before his dismissal, caught by Tony Ura off a John Kariko delivery.
But West Indies found themselves on 97/5 with just four overs remaining after the loss of Rovman Powell and Sherfane Rutherford - and there were certainly some nerves in the camp.
It was left to Chase and Russell to complete the job and they did so to give the co-hosts a winning start.
"I'm very pleased. Starting the tournament with a win is always good. I needed to take it home for the team, and I did it," Chase said afterwards.
Papua New Guinea captain Assad Vala was obviously disappointed with the result but pleased with his team.
"We were very happy with the way we fought - we got wickets at key moments."
PNG faces Uganda on June 6 in their second pool match.
Losses for PNG and Silktails
The Papua New Guinea Hunters lost 48-36 to the Magpies in the Hostplus Queensland Rugby League competition on Saturday.
That sees them drop to 11th spot on the points table, with five wins from 11 games.
They have 12 points to their name, six behind ladder leaders the Devils.
Meanwhile, the Kaiviti Silktails rugby league team lost 56-0 to the junior Raiders on Saturday.
The Raiders had led 28-0 at halftime in the Jersey Flagg competition.