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The USA were seconds away from the biggest upset of the Olympic rugby sevens tournament before Emma Tonegato and Chloe Dalton combined to earn Australia a 12-12 draw Sunday in a dramatic end to the group stage

Tonegato scored a try at the death for the world series champions and Dalton converted it after the full-time siren

"We haven't got the loss against our name but it was definitely the kick up the pants that we needed going into the quarter-finals," said Australia coach Tim Walsh

Emma Tonegato powers through some stout USA defence (Getty Images/David Rodgers) Walsh said

"I sent a message out to Chloe before she kicked saying, 'This is for the gold medal, so keep your head down and slot this,' and she did

I think she really likes the pressure

" Tonegato scored the first and the last tries of the match, and Jessica Javelet scored two in between to give the Americans a 12-5 lead going into the last minute

With the draw, Australia topped Pool A and moved into a quarter-final match later Sunday against Spain - the last team to qualify for rugby's return to the Olympic Games after 92 years - leaving the Americans third in the group but into the quarter-finals as well

The USA now face a daunting knockout match against New Zealand, the other main contender for Olympic gold

Olympic rugby sevens at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games Eagles captain Kelly Griffin praised Javelet for her pace, saying "she can come into these games and make a difference

" "Australia is the No

1 team in the world, so they put up a really good fight," she said, adding that securing a quarter-final spot had always been the target for Sunday

"These girls are my family, so we're trying to do something great together

" Shock for Canada against Team GB Great Britain captain Emily Scarratt scored a second-half double as her team upstaged Canada 22-0 to top Pool C, scoring four tries against a team that hadn't conceded a point in its opening two games

The 12-player British squad contains 11 members of the England team which finished the World Rugby Women's Sevens Series tied with Canada, which won the last stop on the tour and edged into third place and was confident of winning an Olympic medal

 Handling errors cost the Canadians dearly, though, with the British converting four turnovers into tries, including one after the halftime siren

In the other quarter-finals, Britain will play Fiji, which placed second in Pool A and closed with a 36-0 win over Colombia, and Canada will meet France, which lost 26-7 to New Zealand and placed second in Pool B

Hosts open their account against Colombia Brazil won its first game of the tournament, beating Japan 26-10, but both teams missed out on the play-offs along with Colombia and Kenya, which lost 19-10 to Spain its last game

 A fan cheers at the Brazil v Colombia contest at Deodoro Stadium (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images) Beatriz Futuro Muhlbauer capped the victory for Brazil by diving under the posts directly in front of the biggest section of local fans for her second try of the match

Raucous cheering ensued in the almost half-full temporary 15,000-seat stadium

Australia's Elia Green, the fastest woman in world rugby, had to leave the field inside the first 30 seconds after clashing heads with one of the US players

The Australian team said she had passed an initial head-injury assessment, and would undergo another test but expected she'd be cleared for the quarter-finals

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