Source : ABC NEWS
New Zealand has pummelled Australia to claim the overall World SVNS World Championship title at Dignity Health Sports Park in Los Angeles.
The two-time Olympic champions, who also won the league phase of the competition this year, jumped out into an early lead and never looked back, running out 31-7 winners in a dominant display of power and precision at the venue where, in three years, they will hope to win a hat-trick of Olympic titles.
Australia were the defending SVNS series winners and went unbeaten through the group phase of the competition, demolishing Canada — who shocked the Aussies in the Olympic semifinal in Paris last year — 33-7 in the semifinal.
New Zealand were also on song though, thrashing hosts USA 34-7 in their semi and looked heavy favourites heading into the final, having won four of the six legs of the series and finishing second in the other two.
Australia were the team who beat the Kiwis to the titles in Dubai and Perth, but were chasing shadows right from the off in LA.
Player of the match Jorja Miller opened the scoring for the New Zealanders in just the second minute of the match, powering past an admirable defensive effort from MacKenzie Davis to score.
“It was an awesome game out here,” Miller said.
“We love this rivalry, so awesome to get the win.”
The Aussies did threaten the New Zealand defensive line through the rest of the half, but it was the championship leaders who scored next through Michaela Brake, giving the Kiwis a 12-0 lead at the break.
Australia was given life early in the second half when Davis scooted off the back of a ruck from inside her own 22 to fly down and score under the posts to make it 12-7.
The Aussies finished second to their perennial rivals. (Reuters: Daniel Cole)
But a brilliant burst from Brake out of her own 22 set up another try, the double Olympic gold medallist showing a clean pair of heels down the left side before passing inside to Miller, who was able to offload to Risi Pouri-Lane to score.
Next it was skipper Sarah Hirini cutting the Aussies open again, a magical offload to Mahina Paul doing the honours of completing the scoring.
Then Hirini was able to score one herself, Miller getting another offload away to the New Zealand skipper, who exploded with emotion upon scoring, knowing the title was hers.
“I don’t show too much emotion but I think it showed how much it meant to this group,” Hirini said on the pitch after the match.
“Probably after the Olympic gold medal we wanted to show we are a great team.
“To us, that was winning the league and winning the series, and we did it and obviously I was f***ing excited about it.”
The excitement was contagious, with Miller saying the prospect of coming back to LA in three years to defend their Olympic crown was at the forefront of everyone’s mind.
“After last year in Paris, it’s just made me even more excited,” she said.
“I just know we’re going to pack out the stadium. It’s going to be epic.”
Australia’s try-scoring sensation Maddison Levi was unable to cross in the final, but still finished top of the try-scoring charts in 2024/25.
Levi scored a whopping 54 tries in the season, the third year she has passed the half century and in a season where she became the first Australian to score more than 200 tries for her nation.
The 23-year-old became the first women’s player to top the charts three years in a row and scored more than a third of all Australia’s tries across the year.
Australia’s men’s team ended its season with a sixth-place finish after being humbled 33-7 by France.
The men had come agonisingly close to making the semifinals, losing 21-19 to New Zealand in a match that needed 3 minutes of extra time to be concluded.
Henry Hutchison thought he had scored what would have been the match-winning try in that added time, but the officials said there was no conclusive evidence of the 28-year-old having grounded the ball.
The Aussies had earlier upset Fiji (15-14) and Spain (15-10) but missed out on a top-four berth by just two points on differential, with three of the four teams locked on seven competition points.
