The Australian sevens team have gone agonizingly close to winning gold conceding two tries in the last seven minutes to go down to New Zealand 24-17 at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

The Australian team, consisting of seven Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holders, had a chance to win the game with 66 seconds left on the clock but a pass from Nick Phipps to Liam Gill went to ground.   

Australian coach Michael O’Connor could only think of what could have been watching anxiously from the sidelines.

"We had a chance to win that game with that dropped ball but it wasn’t to be," O’Connor said.

"If Liam manages to take that ball from Nick then I saw him going under the posts.”

"If we score with a minute to go (the score is 24-19) and I think we have the capacity to take the restart and shut the game out but there are lots of ifs and buts."

Despite the disappointment of missing out on gold O’Connor was full of praise for his players.

"We came over here to win gold and that was my expectation but we came very close and in sevens things turn on a sixpence," he said.

"All I can say is all our boys gave it everything, there was no petrol left in the tank, and I'm proud of them.”

"Our defence was outstanding and it was the thing that really stood us apart in this tournament."

While the New Zealanders celebrated their fourth straight Games sevens gold medal with a string of hakas, Australia consoled themselves with silver being their best ever result.

The previous best was bronze when David Campese captained the 1998 side in Kuala Lumpur.