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The biggest story was an ever-present swarming defence. Canada’s opponents were forced on to the back foot time again. Only super speedsters like Portia Woodman of New Zealand or Naya Tapper of the USA had any scoring luck against the plucky Canadians.

In the first two games of day one, the Canadians had their way with France and Papua New Guinea because they were ferocious. They lost their final pool game to New Zealand because they weren’t ferocious enough.

But in the quarterfinal win over Russia, Canada didn’t give an inch and won 26-5 because of this.

Defence is everything in sevens. The tackling part is an obvious key — but it’s also how you force the other team into making decisions with the ball which can lead to further success.

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That was the story in the semi final upset of the Aussies. Playing at home, at a bumping Allianz Stadium, the Rio gold medalists were hot favourites.

But they couldn’t best the Canadian defensive pressure, which forced mistake after mistake.

First half tries from Britt Benn and Jen Kish were all Canada needed. Elia Green had opened scoring for the home side in the game’s first minute, but the women in red never looked fazed in the slightest.

“They are going to make mistakes, that’s life. You’re not just going to win everything all the time. You’d like to, but we’ve got to maintain that consistency and stay at the top. We’ve got another game to go and we’ve got another round in Las Vegas at the end of the month. It’s not the end of the world, it’s a game that we’ve lost. We need to build on that,” Aussie coach Tim Walsh told the Sydney Morning Herald’s Tom Decent afterwards.