Kenya Lionesses walloped 52-0 by N Zealand in opener

New Zealand underlined their credentials as the gold medallists in waiting when their women’s rugby sevens team crushed Kenya Lionesses 52-0 on Saturday inspired by a Portia Woodman hat-trick of tries in their Group B opener of Rio 2016 Olympics.

Kenya failed to find a way as the winger cruised over to complete her treble of five-pointers and with two minutes to go, she almost added a fourth.

Instead of going for the try-line, she turned provider, offloading the ball to allow mother of two, Niall Williams, a sister of All Blacks World Cup winning star, Sonny Bill, who is in the men’s squad to score.

Kyla McAlister then touched down at the buzzer to complete the rout in what was exhibition stuff from New Zealand for 14 minutes and a shame for Mike Shamiah’s side as the sport marked its debut at the Olympics.

It took the livewire winger a mere 90 seconds to open the scoring for New Zealand, ghosting around a non-existent Kenyan defence for the converted try.

The only thing to take the gloss off a dominant first half for New Zealand was the two needless sin bins for Sarah Goss and Ruby Tui.

That however, did not stop the women in black showing their class. Birthday girl McAlister touched down under the posts before Huriana Manuel fend off a tackle to add a third try before the end of the half.

At the start of the second, Woodman who would not look out of place on the athletics track later in the Games was given a yard of space and the winger zoomed around the outside and sprints 80m to score her second.

Kenya were being overwhelmed and New Zealand add a fifth converted from the kick-off, with Gayle Broughton adding her name to the score sheet.