Big guns dominate sevens

11.00pm

The big guns dominated the opening round of pool play in the Wellington leg of the international sevens series in Wellington today.

New Zealand, Australia, defending champions South Africa, Fiji and England had little trouble registering first-up wins, as did Samoa and France.

Tafai Ioasa crossed for three tries as New Zealand, yet to win their home tournament, thumped Tonga 31-5, with five tries to one.

Nathaniel Walker scored the other two tries for New Zealand and kicked a conversion, with Justin Wilson adding two other conversions.

The two most impressive teams in the preliminaries, however, were the finalists of last week's Brisbane tournament, England and Fiji.

Captain Sireli Bobo set the momentum for Fiji, one of the crowd favourites, with three tries in their 35-19 victory over a physical Canadian team.

Raymond Rodan and Sireli Rokobiau also crossed for Fiji.

Rokobiau, who has taken over the playmaking role from the veteran Waisale Serevi, converted all the tries.

England, who beat New Zealand and Fiji to win the Brisbane sevens, scored the biggest win of the first pool round without fully using their leading players such, as Henry Paul and Simon Amor.

They beat Papua New Guinea 49-0, scoring seven tries near the posts to enable Ben Collings to convert all.

Richard Houghton (three), Collings (two), captain Tony Roques and Rob Thirby scored the tries.

Australia struggled early against Japan, but once Marshall Milroy crossed for two quick tries, they settled down and cruised home by 21 points, 26-5.

Tim LeNevez and Brock James scored the other two tries, with James kicking three conversions.

In other first-round matches Samoa beat the Cook Islands 21-0, France overwhelmed Niue 33-0 and Argentina, the dark horses of the tournament, crushed China 36-5.

The tournament, at the Cake Tin, finishes tomorrow night.

New Zealand lead the series with 48 points, followed by Fiji 44, Australia 32, England 30, and Samoa and South Africa 28.

- NZPA