![\"Wallace](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/9b44be2fa4b44d4bd8980c2d5b49f638.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nAustralia’s rugby sevens men are rallying around Will Cartwright after the 22-year-old dislocated his shoulder in the opening minutes of their hoodoo-busting 21-14 win over New Zealand in the world series event in Perth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there was otherwise plenty to cheer about for the fans at the Perth Sevens on a scorching Saturday after both the home teams went unbeaten on the way to securing semifinal berths.<\/p>\n
The Australian women posted wins over Great Britain (54-5), France (26-12) and Canada (38-10) to set up a semifinal showdown with the US on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Aussie men broke a nine-match losing streak to NZ before beating France 29-14 and Great Britain 24-21, setting up a final-four match-up against South Africa.<\/p>\n
But the Australian men’s win over NZ came at a big cost, with Cartwright forced off in the opening minutes with a shoulder dislocation.<\/p>\n
Cartwright was given a green whistle for fast-acting pain relief and is not expected to take any further part in the tournament.<\/p>\n
The injury is a bitter blow to Cartwright, who has impressed in his first season of Rugby Sevens.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rising star Wallace Charlie on the burst on day one of Perth Sevens. (AAP: Richard Wainwright)<\/p>\n
Australia adapted beautifully to the 35 degree Celsius conditions, with the home side breaking NZ’s spirits with the first two tries of the second half to open up a 21-7 lead.<\/p>\n
“We’re the fittest team out here,” Josh Turner said.<\/p>\n
“We may not be the biggest, but when it gets to those 10 to 12 minutes (of a 14-minute match), we start coming back and we start really putting the tempo on teams.<\/p>\n
“We were clinical, we finished a couple of good tries off, and we defended well.”<\/p>\n
The win over Great Britain was a nail-biter.<\/p>\n
Australia led 19-0 before Great Britain scored three quick tries to go ahead 21-19.<\/p>\n
But Australia came out on top after Hadley Tonga scored an acrobatic try in the corner after the final siren.<\/p>\n
Australia’s last-gasp win meant NZ sneaked into the semifinals at the expense of Great Britain.<\/p>\n
The Australian women opened their account with an eight-tries-to-one hammering of Great Britain, with Heidi Dennis scoring a hat-trick.<\/p>\n
It was a perfect way to bounce back from the 36-7 hammering Australia copped at the hands of NZ in the Singapore Sevens final last Sunday.<\/p>\n
“I was a bit nervous \u2026 but once we got rolling, it was great,” Dennis said.<\/p>\n
“It was a rough final in Singapore, but that’s footy, you’ve got to move on.<\/p>\n
“It was really important to get out here and start strong.”<\/p>\n
The ever-prolific Maddison Levi scored one try in the win over GB, a brace in the France victory, and another two in their final group match against Canada.<\/p>\n
AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia’s rugby sevens men are rallying around Will Cartwright after the 22-year-old dislocated his shoulder in the opening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44,233391,31153,2633],"class_list":["post-465070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news","tag-perth-sevens","tag-rugby-sevens","tag-rugby-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}