Australia gained some degree of consolation at the world series sevens rugby tournament in Wellington by beating Scotland 22-7 in the Plate final.
The young Australian side effectively finished fifth of 16 teams on Saturday to round out their best effort of the series.
They won five of six matches, sweeping through pool play unbeaten on Friday – including an upset defeat of Fiji – and comfortably accounting for South Africa (28-12) and the Scots in the Plate division.
Their only loss was 24-5 to series leaders New Zealand in the Cup quarter-finals.
Tries to Sean McMahon, Pama Fou and Shannon Walker put Australia 17-0 ahead of Scotland at halftime and Peter Lee sealed the result after the break.
Coach Michael O’Connor was pleased with his youthful team’s progress over two days.
“Unfortunately, New Zealand took their A game into that quarter-final and we had no answer to that. Apart from that, it was a good weekend,” O’Connor said.
“We’ve been slow out of the blocks. We’ve had a bad run of injuries through the first couple of tournaments. And this is a really tough tournament this one – I’m really pleased the boys finished on a high.”
Australia remain 10th in the standings after four of nine tournaments.
The fifth leg is in Las Vegas next week.
Kenya and England were to contest the Cup final on Saturday after Kenya stunned New Zealand in the semi-finals and England pipped Samoa.