Michaela Blyde's hat-trick of tries has rescued the Black Ferns Sevens from shock defeat to Great Britain in their second pool outing at the Tokyo Olympics.
Hoping to improve on their silver medals at Rio 2016, the NZ women opened their account with an easy won over Kenya on Thursday afternoon, but quickly found themselves in a deep hole against their next rivals in the evening.
Uncharacteristic mistakes from the Kiwis saw the British capitalise with three early tries, all converted, for a 21-0 lead.
But New Zealand began to break down that deficit before halftime, with Blyde showing her gas for two quick tries to close within 21-12 at the break.
To complete their comeback, the Ferns probably needed to score next and Tyler Nathan-Wong obliged, taking a quick penalty tap on halfway and scything through the defence to score under the posts, then convert.
Now just two points down, they needed one more try, but time was running out. Their opportunity came, when Jasmine Joyce was shown a yellow card for offside, and the Ferns worked the ball round, looking for the overlap.
Unsurprisingly, victory was merely a matter of getting the ball to Blyde, who - not for the first time this year - sealed the late win with her third try of the day.
"There's not enough hand sanitiser in all of Japan to clean that up," reflected NZ veteran Ruby Tui afterwards, promising that the Ferns' tackling would improve before Friday.
They face Russian Olympic Committee in their final pool outing, before a quarter-final tomorrow night.
