Awesome Australia end Irish rugby sevens medal dreams

Australia produced a scintillating display of attacking rugby to end Ireland's Women's Rugby Sevens' medal dreams tonight.

Ireland, featuring Tullamore's Megan Burns and Ballinasloe's Beibhinn Parsons in their starting line up, were hit early by an Australian onslaught and the game was effectively out of sight within five minutes.

The two sides had met earlier today in a tight Pool B encounter with the side from the Southern Hemisphere edged by 19-14, with Ireland producing their best performance of the Olympic Games.

However, it proved stiff a task for Allan Temple-Jones's side to repeat the feat tonight at the quarter final stage, as Australia scored six tries to win by 40-7.

Ireland had qualified for the last eight as the best of the third-placed sides following the pool stages, and were paired up again against Australia, who began like train, swooping for two quick-fire tries in the opening minutes.

They were 26-0 up at the interval, and the task became even stiffer for Ireland when Beibhinn Parsons went off with an injury early in the second half.

Stacey Flood did cross the try line for the Irish to get on the scoreboard, but overall Ireland came up short.

Ireland now enter the placing games and will face home nation France in their placing game tomorrow at 2pm, after the French were surprisingly beaten by Canada at the quarter final stage.