The Auckland women and men’s sevens team have finished Day One of Nationals with two more victories, both qualifying for cup quarter finals tomorrow.

The women put together their most comprehensive performance of the day with a 43-0 win over Hawke’s Bay.

The team grafted hard in the first half, several big defensive plays leading to the majority of possession and Lydia Crossman and Kiritapu Demant benefitted with tries.

It was more free flowing in the second spell, Auckland running in five tries. Crossman nabbed a double, as did speed-star Natahlia Moors, while Tash Davie and Charlotte Scanlan also crossed for points.

The result sees Auckland finish second in their pool after narrowly losing to Bay of Plenty in the first round match. They will face Canterbury in tomorrow’s quarter finals.

Coach Crystal Kaua was pleased with the progression the team made throughout the day.

“We’re slowly improving and working together as a team. That first game was a tough one, it always is against Bay of Plenty but we played good quality rugby.”

“We’ve got a work to do leading into tomorrow, mainly around playing to our systems and playing a team game, when we play a team game we play good rugby. All in all, we’re happy to move on to day two and we’ve improved each game,” said Kaua.

The men had their toughest outing of the day coming up against the previously unbeaten Wellington.

They came out of the blocks firing, with Joe Ravouvou showing electric pace to open the scoring. Co-captain Rocky Khan responded with some individual brilliance of his own, going 65 metres to score Auckland’s second, Auckland led 12-0 at the break.

The second half was spent on defence and the men worked tirelessly to ensure Wellington couldn’t get back in the match, a consolation try on full time making the final score 12-7.

The Auckland men finish first in their pool and will play either Tasman or Taranaki in tomorrow’s quarter-finals.

Auckland men’s coach Ed Cocker said it was good to get through day one without injury.

“Tomorrow is promising. There are a lot of work on’s but we’re quite happy with how we went defensively today and we’ve got some good attacking power,” said Cocker.