Dubai: A Rachel Crothers hat-trick inspired Australia ladies’ stunning 35-27 comeback win over New Zealand to clinch the opening round of the five-stage 2013 IRB Women’s Sevens World Series at the Emirates Dubai Rugby Sevens here on Friday.

The Kiwis raced to a 22-0 lead before the interval after tries by Carla Hohepa, Kayla McAlister and a double from Honey Hireme, with Hazel Tubic finally converting after three earlier misses.

Australia’s Crothers then scored the first of her three tries — with Cobie Jane Morgan converting — before the break, to give the Wallabies a glimmer of hope at 22-7.

New Zealand appeared to be in cruise control, however, with a McAlister try, which Tubic again failed to convert after the interval to take the score to 27-7.

It should have been game over for Australia but Crothers got two more tries either side of efforts from Ellia Green and Emilee Cherry, with four successful conversions from Cobie-Jane Morgan to complete the comeback of the tournament.

It represents a massive shock for New Zealand, who won last year’s inaugural Women’s World Series and followed it up with an IRB Women’s Sevens World Cup win over the summer.

Australia coach Tim Walsh said: “I’m extremely proud of the girls. Everyone thought for a while it could have been a hiding to nothing but I have faith in the girls and they have faith in themselves as you saw. It’s a fantastic way to win anyway — entertaining.”

Asked if he was worried after going 22-0 behind and then trailing 27-7 in the start of the second half, Walsh added: “I’ve been around in sevens long enough to know when you are out of the game. You do get a bit worried at times, but one try and it’s 27-14 and then it’s one more and we are back in it. That’s all it takes and the game can swing back around in moments in one mistake or one piece of brilliance and then you are back in the game.”

New Zealand coach Sean Horan said: “We just couldn’t hold on. We had a game plan where we knew what we needed to do to them. But you’ve got to be realistic with where we were going in this tournament.

“Australia had the fitness in them and the pace on us. We had to work pretty hard for our tries and we built it up pretty well but in the end we let too many soft tries over the line from long range and the girls were just blowing too hard and it kind of caught up on us.”

New Zealand got this far by finishing top of Pool A on Thursday after beating Fiji 33-7, Ireland 29-0 and the USA 31-0. They then overcame Brazil 40-7 in the Cup quarter-final, before prevailing over Canada 19-5 in the semi-final earlier on Friday.

Australia had similarly topped Pool C with three straight wins over Brazil 38-10, France 31-0 and Canada 17-0 before respective quarter and semi-final wins over England 19-12 and Russia 31-0.