It was double victory for New Zealand as the curtain came down on a sensational Cathay/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens played out in front of a 40,000 strong sell-out crowd with a vibrant atmosphere to match the thrilling action on the pitch over three days at Hong Kong Stadium.
New Zealand beat USA 36-7 in the women’s final to claim their third consecutive HSBC SVNS gold taking them above Australia to the top of the standings with one regular season event remaining in Singapore.
Meanwhile the All Blacks Sevens won a tense men’s final 10-7 against France to defend their Cathay/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens title, win their first SVNS title of the season, and complete a tournament double.
Michaela Blyde scored a hat-trick as the Black Ferns Sevens proved too strong for a USA side making their first women’s final appearance of the season following an impressive 19-5 victory over France in the semi-final.
New Zealand hattrick hero Blyde who was playing her fiftieth SVNS tournament said: “To come back with back-to-back wins in Hong Kong is really special. We’re really proud of the way we performed today.
“We obviously weren’t impressed or happy with how we performed at the start of the season. We had a lot of things that we needed to work on.
“We just need to bring it back to basics. There are a lot of teams that are starting to develop their skillset very quickly so for us we just wanted to stay on top of the game by being the best versions of ourselves, doing the simple things right, width-to-width, good accuracy with our passes and to try and be fitter and faster than most teams.
“As soon as you bring some speed and fitness into the game, you take control of momentum. If we can keep on top of that in our team, we can hopefully continue this constancy moving on into the Olympics.”
Australia had earlier lost to their trans-Tasman rivals 28-14 in the last four, but pulled off a thrilling 24-21 comeback win over France to take bronze. They now sit equal with New Zealand in the series standings on 106 points, but drop to second on points difference.
