Canada's surprising run at New Zealand Sevens ends

The Canadian rugby team's surprising run at the New Zealand Sevens ended Saturday with a 15-12 overtime loss to Samoa in the quarter-finals.

Nathan Hirayama forced the extra period for Canada with a conversion at the final whistle of regulation time, but Lolo Lui kicked a penalty in overtime to seal the win for Samoa.

With the loss, Canada was relegated to the Plate semifinal, where it fell 21-19 to South Africa. The South Africans went on to defeat Tonga in the Plate final.

A win over Samoa would have given Canada a spot in its first-ever IRB sevens semifinal. Connor Braid and Sean Duke scored tries for Canada against Samoa. Lui had two tries, a conversion and the winning penalty for Samoa.

"You can always argue with penalty decisions but these things happen. There is no point in looking back at it as there were other aspects that we should have controlled in the lead up to that decision," Canadian coach Geraint John said. "We ran Samoa so close after letting them get away from us at the start but it was unfortunate that we couldn't finish the job."

The Canadians earned a rare spot in the quarter-finals after finishing atop Pool D on Friday.

Canada defeated France 19-14 and Kenya 21-14 to lead a group that also included Australia in the tournament's most closely contested pool.

Canada's wins came on either side of a 14-12 loss to the Australians, who lost to Kenya and then drew France 10-10, giving the Canadians top spot.

Meanwhile, Frank Halai scored two first-half tries as New Zealand overwhelmed Fiji 24-7 to win the New Zealand leg of the World Sevens Series for the second straight year.

Halai touched down twice within two minutes as New Zealand scored four tries to race to a 24-0 halftime lead. It's defence and kicking game then held out Fiji in wet and slippery conditions in the second half to clinch its sixth win in 13 years in its home tournament and to give it the outright lead after six of eight tournaments on this year's world circuit.

The next tournament of the International Rugby Board series is in Las Vegas from Feb. 10 to 12.

New Zealand captain D.J. Forbes opened the scoring in the final with a try after five minutes, before being forced from the field with a deep gash under his left eye. Veteran playmaker Tomasi Cama converted to pass 1,400 points in World Series matches.

Halai scored his first try with three minutes, 40 seconds remaining in the half, breaking down the right touch after New Zealand had forced a turnover. He then turned up on the left touch less than two minutes later to take a long pass from Cama and to beat the Fiji defence for a second time.

Cama scored his own try with time up in the half to extend his career points tally to 1,408 points with the conversion and give New Zealand a commanding halftime lead.

New Zealand shut down Fiji's dangerous runners in the second half to maintain its advantage. Fiji finally broke the deadlock with 49 seconds remaining in the match to score through Waisea Nayacelevu who was playing in his first World Series tournament.

New Zealand had earlier rallied from 12-0 down to beat England 17-12 in a semifinal which went to extra time. Halai was again the try-scorer as New Zealand took the match in sudden death overtime.

"To come back from such a deficit in the semifinal showed real character and obviously you only get the rewards for hard training and slog," Forbes said. "In the final I think we showed what we're all about. We knew we had to start well because if you can get away to a good start against Fiji their heads tend to go down a bit and we managed to do that today."

Fiji overcame a loss to Tonga in pool play Friday, which saw it qualify second from its group, to beat South Africa 21-5 in Saturday's quarter-finals and Samoa 28-5 in the semis. New Zealand beat France 22-7 in its quarter-final before its hard-fought semifinal against England.

England went on to beat Samoa 21-12 in the playoff for third and fourth.