New Zealand on track for 3rd straight win

LAS VEGAS (AP) - New Zealand scored a late try against England for a 12-7 victory to advance to the USA Sevens semifinals and maintain its chances of winning a third straight IRB Sevens series title.

New Zealand will play South Africa, which beat Argentina 24-5, in the first semifinal Sunday. Samoa, 19-14 winners over Kenya, will play South Pacific rivals Fiji in the other semifinal after the Fijians beat Wales 12-5.

Fiji, South Africa and New Zealand, which won the Port Elizabeth tournament in South Africa in December and its home tournament last weekend in Wellington, completed pool play earlier Saturday with 3-0 records.

New Zealand leads the nine-tournament world series with 73 points after four events, three ahead of Fiji and nine in front of England.

The defending Series champion New Zealanders came from behind for the second straight week against England. Tomasi Cama scored the eventual winning try after Frank Halai had given New Zealand a 5-0 lead and Dan Norton's try made it 7-5 for England.

"We are battling really hard to get into our position," New Zealand captain D. J. Forbes said on the tournament website.

"We played Samoa in the pool game and then we were straight into England, so we had a pretty hard draw and that is how it has been all year. But I guess it sets us up for tomorrow."

South Africa captain Kyle Brown's scored his 50th Sevens series try in his team's win over Argentina.

"It (Las Vegas) is a happy hunting ground for us, but the whole subject of the week has been teamwork and unity," Brown said. "They (New Zealand) are the top side in the world and if you want to be number one you have to measure yourself against the best."

Fiji came from behind to beat Wales on two tries by Setefano Cakau.

"We want to go back to the top of the Series table," Cakau said. "The difference is three points so we want to make it back to the final, for that IRB prize."

England will play Argentina in the Plate semifinals on Sunday while Kenya faces Wales.

Australia beat Brazil 50-0 in the opening Bowl quarterfinal to book its place in the semifinals and will face the United States.

Taylor Paris scored three tries to give Canada a spot in the final four of the Bowl competition after a 29-0 victory over Uruguay.

Canada will play Japan on Sunday after two tries from Ryo Tsuruta and one from Kazushi Hano helped the Asian side score an upset 15-14 win over Scotland.