Double Olympic champions Fiji showed again they are the team to beat in rugby sevens as they powered to a pulsating 19-12 win Thursday over the hosts at a packed Stade de France in Paris.
Despite boasting 15-a-side superstar Antoine Dupont in their ranks, France had little answer to Fiji’s power, pace, bruising tackling and trademark flair.
Both teams were already into the quarter-finals, where France will meet Argentina and Fiji face Ireland.
To the delight of the sell-out crowd, Les Bleus opened the scoring, withstanding a wave of crunching Fijian defensive hits to send Aaron Grandidier Nkanang over the line.
But Fiji have never lost an Olympic rugby sevens match and hit back instantly, with some extraordinary offloads releasing captain “King” Jerry Tuwai for his first try of this tournament.
With the scores level at half time, Kaminieli Rasaku put the Fijians ahead early in the second half, seizing on a two-man overlap with a well-worked try in the corner.
French coach Jerome Daret had left the talismanic Dupont on the bench but deployed his playmaker with four minutes left, to a rapturous reception.
Despite several probing runs Dupont was unable to turn the tide and Joji Nasova touched down in the corner in the last minute to kill the match off as a contest.
Andy Timo scored a consolation try after the buzzer for France.
“I love playing against Argentina. They have snatched a lot of wins, titles and medals away from us,” said French player Varian Pasquet.
“If we can get them out in the quarter-finals, it will be great… it’s going to be electric,” he told reporters.
‘Coming of age’
Earlier, Australia topped pool B with a hard-fought 22-14 win over Argentina.
Australia used clever kicks into space to open up the Los Pumas defence and offloaded well out of contact.
Captain Nick Malouf finished off a well-worked move to dot down in the corner in the final minutes to kill off the challenge of Argentina.
Both sides will be a handful in the knock-out phases.
Malouf said his team will be judged on their performance at the business end of the tournament.
“We have not achieved anything yet, we need to get through tonight. It has been good so far. I am super pleased with where we are going but tonight is all I care about,” he told reporters.
In the match to decide the pool A “group of death” containing some of rugby’s top superpowers, New Zealand edged Ireland 14-12, while South Africa also progressed as one of the top third-placed teams.
The narrow loss earned Ireland a daunting quarter-final clash with Fiji. The other quarter-finals later Thursday will see Australia play the United States and New Zealand take on South Africa.
With World Rugby organisers expecting a record 550,000 fans in the Stade de France over six days, chief executive Alan Gilpin has described it as a “coming of age” event for sevens.
The men’s gold medal will be awarded on Saturday, with the women’s competition starting a day later.
The women’s tournament is likely to be dominated by Australia and New Zealand, teams Gilpin said were taking the game to a new level.
