'Still not awesome': What the Aussie 7s need to fix before the quarters

Australia are charging into the quarterfinals on the back of a seemingly sublime start to their Sydney Sevens campaign, but Head Coach Tim Walsh wants his side to be even better.

The women in gold have won all three of their matches so far – in convincing fashion too – starting with a 28-12 win over Brazil on Friday.

Superstar Maddison Levi stole the show during Australia’s 48-nil demolition of Spain last night, and she added another try during the 43-7 win over Ireland.

From the outside looking in, Australia couldn’t be playing any better ahead of the quarterfinals.

But don’t tell Head Coach Tim Walsh that.

This is a team who expects excellence every time they run out onto the field, and this is their home event – the players will undoubtedly be eager to get everything right in front of friends and family.

Speaking after the win over Ireland, Walsh said the performance still wasn’t “awesome.”

“Still not awesome though, a couple of pretty simple errors and little things like that,” Walsh told reporters.

“It’s a real heavy, humid track and you see all the teams struggling. What’s really important is the use of the bench.

“Our bench did really well so I think they made the difference and blew out the score a little bit.

“We enjoy the hard work so we’re hoping that it gets hotter and that we can really embrace it, and hopefully the crowd get us home,” he added.

“It’s much better when you get a scoreline like that and then build bits of desire and effort, which is what we really hang our hat on.”

Australia are set to face France in the quarterfinals; a team who has only lost one match so far in Sydney.

France began their tournament with a solid win over Japan, before losing to World Series leaders New Zealander later in the day.

But they were able to bounce back with a win over Papua New Guinea on Saturday, and will be looking to silence the home fans with a surprise result against Australia.

“(France) They’ve improved a lot and I think they’ve had a good week.

“They’re a real physical team so they’re sort of not opposite to us but different style so we’re going to have to really be on our defence to make sure we can shut them down.

“If we do, I think it’ll be a good win for us, but if we don’t tackle it’s going to be an absolute scrap fight.”