DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Canada has advanced to the quarter-finals on the women's side of the Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens, winning two of three pool games Thursday.

Ghislaine Landry contributed 19 points via three tries and two conversions in a 26-10 win over Brazil and was one of seven Canadian try-scorers in a 47-5 romp over Fiji.

The day ended on a down note in a 17-12 decision to England, which ran up a 12-0 halftime lead. Bianca Farella and Jen Kish scored second-half tries for Canada.

"We obviously fell short of our Day 1 goal of being a top seed with the loss to England," said Canadian coach John Tait. "Other than a few wrinkles in the Brazil game, we were building well towards our match with England, especially with the quality we showed against Fiji.

"Unfortunately when we played England, we just took too many needless penalties which led to them capitalizing on us scrambling back and falling off one too many tackles. England is just too good a side to make those compounding errors against."

The Canadian women, second in Pool C, will face the Pool A runner-up Americans in the knockout round.

The top four men's and women's teams at the end of the season automatically qualify for the 2016 Olympics.

"Win and we will be holding a top-four qualifying position and not adding any more pressure moving towards the next event," Tait said of the U.S. matchup. "U.S.A. is physical and plays a simple direct game plan. We know what to expect but will need to impose the way we want to play and make sure we control the tempo and not them."

The other quarter-finals are New Zealand versus Russia, England versus France and Australia versus Fiji.

The 12-team tournament is the first of six on the women's circuit.

The Canadian men begin play Friday in Dubai, which is the second stop on the HSBC Sevens World Series.