New Zealand won the Vancouver, 7s, Canada took third much to the delight of the home crowd, and the USA ... well the USA was all over the place.

For four minutes in the Cup Quarterfinals, the Eagles looked like the best team in the tournament, and scored two tries on South Africa to prove it. But then mistakes, and a maddening inability to catch the restarts coming to them, handed the game to the Blitzbokke.

While the USA has been rightfully lauded for their ability to win restarts, especially when they are kicking, their current setup isn't working. The angles are all wrong. The USA has taken to having Stephen Tomasin lift Carlin Isles to catch the restart. But Tomasin is setting himself up to lift a much taller player. The geometry of the lifted player catching a falling ball on a parabola isn't right, and those kickoffs are hitting the ground or, worse, falling directly into opposition hands.

South Africa 26 USA 10.

Into the 5th-place semifinal, the USA pulled out one of their best performances of the year, destroying Fiji 40-14. It wasn't even close. The Eagles hit their rucks well and used everyone. Cody Melphy turned some confused ball into a nice run up the middle. Carlin Isles burned Fiji after picking up at the base of the ruck. Danny Barrett carried three tacklers over the line, and Malon Al-Jiboori started to cause the defense problems as a big runner.

Ben Broselle and Madison Hughes closed it out.

USA 40 Fiji 14

And then in the th-place final, the Eagles got into trouble again. They couldn't win the restarts, they started to miss tackles, and they kept trying to poach the ball out of frustration, leading to penalties. When they did have the ball, they didn't control the ruck, and once again gave up penalties.

Perry Baker scored three tries, but England as a whole scored four.

England 26 USA 21

Overall

New Zealand hung on to win a tense final at the HSBC Canada Sevens in front of another bumper crowd at BC Place in Vancouver.

The All Blacks Sevens’ 17-14 victory over rivals Australia means they stretch their lead at the top of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series standings to 11 points after six rounds of the competition.

The silver medal represents Australia’s best result of the Series so far and their second podium finish following bronze in Hamilton.

The final was a see-saw affair, which included three yellow cards, but ultimately a pair of tries from Joe Ravouvou sealed the victory for New Zealand who duly performed their famous Haka in celebration after receiving their medals.

The All Blacks Sevens reached the final courtesy of a dominant 17-5 quarter-final victory over Fiji before seeing off last year’s HSBC Canada Sevens champions South Africa, running in five tries to win a high quality semifinal 27-15.

Hosts Canada were outstanding throughout the weekend and brought the huge crowd to their feet by winning the bronze medal with an impressive 26-19 victory over last year’s winners South Africa.

Canada were fully deserving of their first Series podium finish since they won gold in Singapore in 2017 and proved that with the Olympic Games just a few months away, many teams can be in with a chance of becoming Olympic medalists.

There was high drama in the semifinal as Canada thought they had scored a match winning try against Australia in the last play of the match only for the Television Match Official to rule that the ball had been grounded centimeters short of the tryline, cueing agony for the Canadian fans in the stadium and relief for the Australia who were safely through to the final.

Australia had earlier overcome England 31-12 to reach the semi-finals, while hosts Canada beat Spain 21-0 to ensure their spot in the semi-finals and give the home crowd hope of a podium finish.

The results in Vancouver mean New Zealand maintain their position at the top of the Series standings, increasing their lead to 11 points over second placed South Africa with four rounds still to play. Fiji remain in third place with Australia hot on their heels just two points behind in fourth.

The All Blacks Sevens have been the most consistent performers of the series, winning medals in five of the six rounds so far.