New Zealand hammered France and Guyana to open their campaign in dominant style at the Las Vegas sevens rugby tournament today (NZT).
In the opening game of the tournament, captain DJ Forbes crossed for two of five tries as New Zealand overwhelmed the French 31-10.
It was more one-sided in
the second match as New Zealand triumphed 49-0 over Guyana, who are playing in their first International Rugby Board series event.
Coach Gordon Tietjens berated his team at halftime for some sloppy work and they improved to run in four of their seven tries after the break. Doubles went to Nafi Tuitavake and Tim Mikkelson.
New Zealand's final pool game today was to come against Australia, who were also comfortable winners over France and Guyana - 38-0 and 33-0 respectively.
The one major upset today saw Japan beat Argentina 7-0 while the United States came close to toppling Wellington champions Fiji, going down 14-12.
Samoan speedster Mikaele Pesamino was in awesome try-scoring form, registering a hat-trick against Scotland and touching down five times against Chile.
Meanwhile, Tietjens said the narrow nature of the pitch at San Boyd Stadium would play a key role at the tournament.
"The width of the pitch can affect things hugely, as coaches we're always talking about using the space, the width and the depth, and the width isn't going to be there (this weekend) so we've had to change our game plan dramatically," Tietjens said.
"It's going to suit some teams more than others but I'm pretty comfortable that we've got the players to perform on a smaller pitch, but it is going to be a challenge."
He said the last time he had seen such a slim pitch was when his team won the 2002 Commonwealth Games gold medal in Manchester.
- NZPA
