Watch the 2025-2026 HSBC SVNS Series live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nIt was destiny\u00a0that the two teams battled it out for the title, with Australia booking their spot after a 26-5 win over France in the semi-finals, setting up the seventh trans-Tasman Final of the season in as many events.<\/p>\n
Tia Hinds and Maddison Levi crossed for doubles as the Aussies hunted for their first title at the home of the World Series.<\/p>\n
The Kiwis started the decider on fire as Mahina Paul crossed for the opener after just three minutes.<\/p>\n
Jorja Miller spun her magic for a 14-0 lead before the Aussies worked their way back into the contest,<\/p>\n
Australia co-captain Bella Nasser reduced the lead right before the break, striking before the half-time whistle from the kick-off.<\/p>\n
But a yellow card to Teagan Levi for a dangerous tackle in the air proved costly, allowing Kelsey Teneti to build a 12-point lead right after half-time.<\/p>\n
The Aussies refused to give up, with Australian try-scoring record-holder Levi crossing with seconds remaining to give Tim Walsh’s side hope should they retain the kick-off.<\/p>\n
In the end, the Australians forced the error; however, it occurred seconds after the siren, ending the game and giving the Kiwis victory.<\/p>\n
The win gives the New Zealanders the edge heading into the final two events of the leg, putting them two points ahead on the overall ladder.<\/p>\n
The SVNS World Series heads to Valladolid in late May, before the title is decided in Bordeaux a week later.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Aussie men lamented a poor finish to their tournament, ending in sixth place.<\/p>\n
They started on fire, sweeping through their pool undefeated, including a gutsy win over New Zealand.<\/p>\n
However, they ran into a determined Spain in the quarter finals, falling to Fiji in the fifth-place playoff.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand have claimed their advantage in the SVNS Championship after taking out the opening event, defeating Australia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[106212,106211,111,43,139,69,106210],"class_list":["post-387455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-australian-mens-sevens","tag-australian-womens-sevens","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sevens-world-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}