England claim IRB Women’s Sevens Challenge Cup

England’s greater power and precision proved too much for first time Cup finalists the Netherlands as the hosts eased to a 34-7 victory in the IRB Women’s Sevens Challenge Cup at Twickenham. England have now won two of the three IRB-sanctioned Challenge Cup events this season, having defeated Australia in the previous final in Hong Kong. They lost out to Canada in the first event, in Dubai.

The Netherlands’ Anne Hielckert had opened the scoring in this Twickenham final to momentarily quieten the crowd. But England’s Hong Kong heroine Joanne Watmore combined power and balance to pierce the Netherlands’ defence twice before Alice Richardson produced a step and hand off to put England 17-7 up at the break.

Watmore completed her hat trick with the first play of the second half to dash any hopes of a Netherlands comeback before Kat Merchant touched down twice late on to complete an impressive victory.

“We came out in the semi final and had a really tough game (against Canada),” said England captain Michaela Staniford. “We made it hard work for ourselves and we didn’t perform, so coming out for the final and putting to bed some of those wrongs and hopefully putting on a show for the crowd was what we really wanted to do.”

For Netherlands coach Gareth Gilbert, whose players are full-time athletes funded by the Dutch Olympic Committee, the final was a promising step forward.

“You’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg so far with regards to the (Dutch) programme. The progress we’ve seen in the last year with these players has been unbelievable. A lot of these ladies have stopped their jobs and their family lives in order to train and play rugby. They train 20 hours a week, which they need to if we are going to compete with the big nations.” Gilbert said.

Dramatic route to Cup final

Earlier on day two, England defeated Russia 19-10 and Netherlands triumphed 19-0 over France in the Cup quarter finals.

The Cup semi finals produced two dramatic matches. England Sevens debutant Emily Scarratt scored the decisive try in extra time to edge the hosts to a 19-12 win over Canada. Then the Netherlands produced arguably the shock of the competition, edging RWC Sevens 2009 champions Australia 14-12.

Canada claimed third place with a 19-14 victory over Australia. USA won the Plate, defeating Russia 22-7. South Africa, for whom Zenay Jordaan was the tournament’s highest points scorer with 43, edged past France 14-7 to end up seventh. China defeated Portugal 43-5 to win the Bowl and Kazakhstan prevailed 19-17 over Brazil in the battle for 11th place.

Day two results Cup final

England 34-7 Netherlands

3rd place play-off

Canada 19-14 Australia

Plate final

USA 22-7 Russia

7th place play-off

France 7-14 South Africa

Bowl final

Portugal 5 – 43 China

11th place play-off

Kazakhstan 19-17 Brazil

Cup semi finals

England 19-12 Canada (AET)

Netherlands 14-12 Australia

Plate semi finals

Russia 19-14 South Africa

France 17-19 USA

Bowl semi finals

Kazakhstan 10-26 Portugal

Brazil 14-33 China

Cup Quarter finals

England 19-10 Russia

Canada 17-0 South Africa

Netherlands 19-0 France

Australia 17-0 USA

Day one pool results

Pool A – ENG, RSA, KAZ, BRA

England 26-5 Kazakhstan

South Africa 28-17 Brazil

England 41-0 Brazil

South Africa 21-12 Kazakhstan

Khazakhstan 14-19 Brazil

England 22-0 South Africa

Pool B – CAN, RUS, NED, POR

Canada 14-15 Netherlands

Russia 19-10 Portugal

Canada 54-0 Portugal

Russia 0-19 Netherlands

Netherlands 24-5 Portugal

Canada 29-0 Russia

Pool C – AUS, USA, CHI, FRA

Australia 27-5 China

USA 7-12 France

Australia 29-0 France

USA 50-0 China

China 5-24 France

Australia 22-5 USA

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