The Canadian women’s rugby sevens team is ranked sixth at the opening stop of the season

Canada’s women held off a late effort to fall to the United States 19-14 and finish sixth Sunday in the Emirates Dubai 7s, the HSBC SVNS season opener.

For the Americans, who missed out on a semi-final on a tiebreaker, it was their fourth straight win after losing their opener 19-7 to Fiji. Canada finished the weekend 3-2-0.

New Zealand won the men’s and women’s cup finals at The Sevens Stadium.

New Zealand beat five-time defending champions Australia 29-14 to win the women’s crown. Australia had won 31 straight games in Dubai, including a 24-17 decision over Canada in pool play on Saturday.

New Zealand’s women, who survived a 21-17 loss to the USA in pool play, finished runner-up to Australia in the last three events in Dubai.

Japan won its first medal in the HSBC SVNS series, defeating Fiji 22-12 to finish third in the women’s team.

The New Zealand players ended the Australian rally in the second half to win the gold medal game 26-22. Fiji beat France 24-7 to finish third.

Kennedy Stevenson and Charity Williams scored Canada’s tries against the U.S. Hogan-Rochester added a conversion.

Stevenson opened the scoring in the second minute after a good run by Hogan-Rochester before Christy Crushy cut through the Canadian defense to pull the Americans even at 7-7 two minutes later.

Hogan-Rochester needed treatment midway through after taking an accidental boot to the face but stayed in the game.

Kailyn Thomas put the Americans up 12-7 early in the second half, tearing up the Canadian defense. Williams returned the favor, winning a penalty with good work on the breakdown after Hogan-Rochester raced down the sideline.

Williams celebrated his try with Monday before Hogan-Rochester’s conversion gave Canada a 14-12 lead.

But the Canadians broke several tackles before Sara Ibarra passed to Sarah Levy for the winning try in the 13th minute, snapping a four-game losing streak against Canada.

“Even though it was the fifth-place match, it felt like the final to us,” Levy said.

Canada was without Chrissy Scourfield, who failed to diagnose her with a head injury.

The Canadian women now head to South Africa for next week’s tournament in Cape Town, the second of nine stops this season.

Canada crashed out of the Dubai semifinals with a costly 21-19 loss to Japan in their final Pool B game on Saturday. Leading 19-7, the Canadians conceded two tries in the final two minutes to fall to third place in the pool – one point behind Japan.

Group winners Australia and runner-up Japan advanced to the semi-finals while Canada was sent to the placement game.

The Canadians bounced back from a loss to Japan on Sunday to beat France 19-12 in the fifth-place semifinal with Monique Coffey’s converted 12th-minute try deciding the match. Breanne Nicholas and Hogan-Rochester also tried out for Canada.

Canada defeated Great Britain 41-5 in the previous game of Group B.

World Rugby has changed the HSBC SVNS format, reducing the field to just eight men’s and eight women’s teams for the first six events of the season – including a stop in Vancouver on March 7-8. The field will then expand for the final three stops, with promotion-relegation in the table.

The Canadian men, exiled in June 2024, are still trying to climb their way into the top tier.

The men had hoped to regain their place through a promotion-relegation play-off series in May following their exit from the second-tier Challenge Series. But World Rugby scrapped the entire seventh series structure ahead of the season-ending tournament in California, closing the table.

After winning the Rugby America North (RAN) Sevens in Trinidad, the Canadian men continued to climb the sevens ladder at the HSBC SVNS 3 in Dubai on January 17-18.

The Canadian women finished eighth in Dubai last December. They followed that with fifth in Cape Town, fourth in Perth, seventh in Vancouver and third in Hong Kong and Singapore to sit fourth overall in the six-event regular-season standings ahead of the HSBC SVNS Championship in May.

Canada won bronze in the finals of that championship in Carson, California, defeating the United States 27-7.