Tue, Oct 12 10 08:37 PM
Sabi Hussain New Delhi, Oct 12 (PTI) Egged on by a capacity crowd at the Delhi University stadium, the ''All Black'' New Zealand produced a come-from-behind performance against Australia to win their fourth Commonwealth Games Rugby Sevens gold medal here today. Hosts India, who yesterday bowed out of the medal contention after losing all three encounters against their higher ranked opponents, finished among the bottom four nations in the Bowl Division. In Rugby Sevens competition, besides the three major medals at stake, two other competitions -- Bowl Division (9th-16th) and Plate Division (5th-8th place) -- also take place for team standings. In the knock-out phase, India played Canada in the morning session and lost 10-43. The Indians were no match for their higher ranked rivals as the Canadians reduced the home squad to mere spectator, scoring seven tries and crossing the line on four occasions to finish with a silver medal in Bowl. They lost the final to Papua New Guinea 10-17. For India, Rohaan Sethna and Puneeth Krishnamoorthy scored a try in each half. "We did not play our best. In the second half we really got to them and scored a really good try. We need to work on receiving balls," Indian skipper Nasser Hussain said. On the crowd, he said, "It''s always positive. They understand that the gap between us and the good teams is big. It''s the first time we played Canada. Taking that into consideration, we did ourselves proud," added Hussain. "We really wanted to get through to the final round (top eight). We were very disappointed with our yesterday''s performance but we did well against India today. I have got utmost respect for them. They are a good team. We just had a few lucky breaks," said Canada captain Nathan Hirayama. Meanwhile, New Zealand, which has not lost a match since winning the first Commonwealth Games Sevens tournament at Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia in 1998, scored through late tries from DJ Forbes and Kurt Baker to register a 24-17 comeback win. It was sheer bad luck for Australia as, despite leading for most part of the match, they allowed the New Zealanders to make a comeback and extend their undefeated run in the quadrennial event. .
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