Dubai: Australia impress on Day 1

Australia threw down their challenge to the world from the tournament's opening game, where they demolished South Africa 36-0 with six tries from six players, opening with Charlotte Caslick, now back fully fit and looking as impressive as she did before her enforced absense. They also rounded off their day with an equally empahtic 39-0 win over Spain - who had an awful day, finishing bottom of the pool with only a draw against South Africa and a thumping 31-0 defeat to France.

The women's game is developing incredibly quickly and Spain - the best European team at the last Sevens World Cup little more than a years ago - are one team that may be starting to stuggle to keep up. They will certainly want to put this tournament behind them as quickly as possible.

Of real concern to the Spanish will be the form shown by the greatest rivals for an Olympic place - France. Not only did the French defeat them, and by the largest margin for many years, but France also pushed the otherwise rampant Australians, going down by 24-10. For one of the new batch of core teams it was a great start to their campaign.

The top ranked of the newcomers - Fiji - had, in comparision, a very disappointing day going down to big defeats to England (26-0) and Canada (47-5), but they just made the quarter-finals thanks to a win over Brazil. However, Pool C was always going to be tough and so it proved to be, providing possibly the best match of the day when England and Canada met to conclude proceedings, England winning 17-12 in what is likely to be a healthy rivary over the next few months.

New Zealand remained unbeaten in Pool A with the help of a big 43-0 over China early in the day, followed by victories over USA and Russia. However the latter two results were nowhere near as easy as that opening win.The USA in particular are clearly back with avengance after a disappointing 2013/14 series, only going down to the Ferns by the odd try in seven having lead for much of the match, a result that followed on from their earlier win over the much-fancied Russians 17-12. The USA then rounded the day off with one of the highest scores ever recorded in the WSWS, a nine-try 61-0 thrashing of China, withVictoria Folayan ending as the day’s top scorer with 35 points, from seven tries.Russia's win over China also puts them into the quarters.The Ferns, who face Russia again in the quarter finals, could be without inspirational captain Sarah Goss on Friday after she left the field in the first half of their 29-12 win over Russia with a finger injury.

CLICK HERE FOR ALL THE RESULTS FROM DAY ONE

Speaking at the end of the day coach Sean Horan said: “We started well but we had a wake-up call against USA, they really threw everything at us.

“We’ve shown that we’ve got some depth, but you have to put things into perspective; we only had two girls on the field from the Rugby World Cup Sevens 18 months ago, so yeah, we have some work to do.”

With Olympic qualification on the line at the end of the series, England captain Abi Chamberlain knows the importance of a top four finish. Speaking after their victory against Canada, she said she was happy with her team's performance on day one.

"We couldn't hope for more. The target was three from three and we nailed it. Canada was our biggest challenge today and we are glad to win this one," said Chamberlain.

The quarter-final draw will see Australia play Fiji, New Zealand play Russia, England take on France while USA, who impressed in the Dubai heat, will play their neighbours Canada on day two at 7he Sevens stadium on Friday.

The day’s bowl semi-finals will see South Africa face China and Spain take on Brazil.

Elsewhere Ireland had a great day in the International Invitational tournament, finishing unbeaten with wins over Kenya, Wales and Georgia, their copybook only blotted by a 12-12 draw with Moscow Region (in effect Russia's second/development team). Ireland will play Almaty (basically Kazakhstan) in the semi-finals while Tribe - comfortable winners of Pool A - play the Russians.

Wales went down to Ireland and Moscow Region, but beat Kenya and Georgia comfortably, and look to have a good chance of winning the plate.Invitational Day One scores can be found here.