{"id":32674,"date":"2026-06-01T09:12:54","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T09:12:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/32674\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T09:12:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T09:12:54","slug":"australia-wins-womens-and-mens-rugby-sevens-final-at-world-championship-leg-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/32674\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia wins women’s and men’s rugby sevens final at World Championship leg in Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"

“One more to go.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

It may be a simple mantra, but it sums up Australia’s approach after it won the second leg of the women’s rugby sevens World Championship in Valladolid, Spain.<\/p>\n

Australia moved to the top of the World Championship standings following its triumph, which was iced with a 27-14 defeat of the USA in the tournament final.<\/p>\n

One leg remains before the world champion is crowned next weekend in Bordeaux, France, with Australia holding a two-point lead over New Zealand on the standings.<\/p>\n

It was a double victory for Australia in Spain, with the men’s team defeating South Africa 26-19 in its final despite losing James Turner to a red card.<\/p>\n

New Zealand defeated Australia 19-14 in the women’s tournament decider at the opening World Championship round, held in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

But the Australians exacted revenge in the Valladolid semifinals, coming back from 14-0 down to win 28-26 in a pulsating encounter.<\/p>\n

The two teams contested each of the six tournament finals during the regular season<\/a>, known as the World Series, with New Zealand winning on five occasions.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, the job is not done,” Australia co-captain Bella Nasser told World Rugby’s broadcast.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got next week in Bordeaux to do, so we’ll recover hard, train hard and hopefully put on a good performance next week.”<\/p>\n

It was coach Tim Walsh who uttered the words “one more to go” as he attempted to keep a lid on the emotions after Australia’s win in the final.<\/p>\n

Australia was forced to cope with losing star duo Maddison Levi (knee) and Tia Hinds (calf) to injury during the tournament.<\/p>\n

Levi was struck down during Australia’s 14-10 loss to USA during the pool stage.<\/p>\n

Hinds sustained her injury while adding the winning points in the semifinal when she converted Kaitlin Shave’s long-range try in the final minute of play.<\/p>\n

“It’s part of the plan to win when it matters towards the end there,” Walsh said.<\/p>\n

“But we’ve still got one more to go, so we’ve put ourselves in a position [to win the World Championship].<\/p>\n

“Overall with the squad, I’m just really proud of the resilience that they showed, but also the belief.<\/p>\n

“Without Maddi Levi, without Tia Hinds, they can go out and perform and perform really well. It bodes well for the future.”<\/p>\n

Aussies sweep trophies<\/p>\n

Australia jumped to third in the men’s standings, eight points behind top-ranked South Africa, after arriving in Valladolid with the threat of relegation hanging over its head<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A disappointing sixth-place finish in Hong Kong meant Australia needed to go deep in the second World Championship leg to eliminate any chance of falling outside the top eight.<\/p>\n

Only the top eight-ranked teams at the end of the World Championship qualify for the 2026-27 regular season.<\/p>\n

\"Australia<\/p>\n

Australia caused an upset with its win over South Africa in the men’s final. (Reuters: Juan Barbosa)<\/p>\n

Australia began its campaign on Friday with a perfect record, defeating Kenya (15-10) and Great Britain (26-21) in its opening two pool matches.<\/p>\n

The tournament was put on notice when Australia beat South Africa in its final pool encounter, 24-14.<\/p>\n

Knock-out wins over Kenya (21-0) and Fiji (21-14) earned passage through to the final.<\/p>\n

“We had a lot of confidence going into this game,” said Australia captain Henry Hutchison, who was named player of the final.<\/p>\n

“If we [stick] to what we’re good at \u2026 we’re a really hard team to stop and we did that for the last two games of this tournament.”<\/p>\n

Both Australians squad are travelling to France on Monday afternoon AEST.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“One more to go.”\u00a0 It may be a simple mantra, but it sums up Australia’s approach after it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1376,15983,2790,15984,15982,15730,15731,17,15981],"class_list":["post-32674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-australia","tag-bella-nasser","tag-final","tag-henry-hutchison","tag-rugby-7s","tag-rugby-sevens","tag-rugby-union","tag-spain","tag-world-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}