Jorja Miller has inspired her New Zealand women’s team to a comprehensive 36-7 victory over Australia in the final of the Singapore Sevens.
Suffocated by their sheer in-your-face physicality of the Black Ferns, not even the Aussies’ star turn Maddison Levi, who had scored a hat-trick in their 35-10 win over Canada in the semis earlier this morning, could get a look in.
Instead, it was New Zealand’s own 21-year-old phenomenon Miller who delivered a masterclass as she had done all tournament, scoring two tries and making several other key interventions in the tackle and breakdown as the Kiwis ran in six tries, including five in a first-half blitz.
The thrashing was hardly the way Australia would have wanted to go into the defence of their Perth Sevens title back home next weekend.
This was the third time Australia and New Zealand had met in a final this season, with the Aussies hopeful of downing the reigning champions again after winning their Cape Town showdown in December.
But by the time Australia had come out for the second half, they were 24-0 down and almost out, with Miller having already pounced on a first-half restart error to score a superb solo try before delivering another tour de force to skip over for her second two minutes later.
With the speedy Jazmin Felix-Hotham also grabbing a brace of tries and Mahina Paul and Katelyn Vahaakolo racing over as well, Australia were only able to break through the shackles once belatedly with the consolation second-half score from Bienne Terita.
It was a grievous disappointment after they had looked so impressive in their semi-final against Canada with tries from Heidi Dennis and Teagan Levi as well as the treble from Levi’s big sister.
Fiji won the men’s final 21-12 against France.
New Zealand were beaten in their semifinal by the eventual champions but finished third after beating South Africa 14-12, helped by a late try for Michael Manson and final-minute conversion for Riley Williams, in the playoff.
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