Two key tries by leader Rhani Hagan set up the Queensland Reds when they stunned the NSW Waratahs 36-19 to take the Next Gen 7s final in Sydney today.<\/p>\n
That’s back-to-back Next Gen 7s titles for the Reds who brought their best form of the four-tournament series when it mattered most in Sydney today.<\/p>\n
The Waratahs were the pacesetters through the preliminary rounds in Lennox Head, Sydney and Canberra but were forced to play catch up on finals day at Pittwater Rugby Park.<\/p>\n
Impressive Reds performer Rhani Hagan in full stride in Sydney. Photo: Karen Watson<\/p>\n
The Reds took care of the Waratahs (24-14) and ACT Brumbies (24-17) in the preliminaries before lining up against the Waratahs in the final.<\/p>\n
The Reds grabbed a commanding 12-0 jump in the opening four minutes through the experienced Hagan and the team’s least experienced player. On both occasions they clinically turned Waratahs mistakes into five-pointers.<\/p>\n
The opening try was a thrill for Townsville schoolgirl Layne Prince who produced a big left-foot step to slice through the defence.<\/p>\n
Hagan used her timing to hoodwink the Waratahs defence with a dummy and used her pace to sprint over.<\/p>\n
It was 19-7 on the stroke of half-time when long-striding Emmisyn Wynyard scored a long-range try down the right touchline from the restart after a Waratahs try.<\/p>\n
At 19-12 early in the second half, the match was in the balance until pacy Leilani Hills scooted over for 24-12.<\/p>\n
Hagan put the result beyond doubt when she backed up Evie Sampson, took a neat offload and ran over under the posts.<\/p>\n
To complete the convincing six-try performance, flyer Matilda Vial crossed in the corner.<\/p>\n
The Reds cherished possession, applied pressure with their defence and stayed composed.<\/p>\n
It was a superb display when it mattered by the young squad of coach Shannon Parry. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two key tries by leader Rhani Hagan set up the Queensland Reds when they stunned the NSW Waratahs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,12061,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-602139","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-queensland-reds","11":"tag-rugby","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602139","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=602139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}