Cape Town – Having won earlier tournaments to lead the Sevens Series, the Blitzboks came crashing down to earth in the recent Toulouse Sevens.
However captain Siviwe Soyizwapi is confident that his team can hit back at the Commonwealth Games next month.
The Springbok Sevens side lost out on a medal in the Gold Coast, Australia at the last event in 2018, losing the third-place play-off 21-14 to England to finish fourth.
The South Africans were cruising at the start of the current Series campaign as the likes of Fiji and New Zealand didn’t participate due to Covid-19 travel restrictions at the time.
But in fact, it wasn’t one of the heavyweight sides that knocked them out at the Toulouse Sevens. They lost 21-12 to Ireland in their opener, beat Spain 27-7, but then lost 19-7 to Samoa.
They thrashed Japan 40-0 in the Plate quarter-final, but lost to Scotland 24-21 in the ninth-place semi-final.
Following the arrival of Angelo Davids and Jordan Hendrikse at the London Sevens a week later, the Blitzboks improved significantly at Twickenham, only losing to eventual champions Australia in the Cup quarter-final, and winning four out of five matches (won 26-19 v Argentina, won 19-12 v Ireland, won 24-21 v Kenya, lost 21-17 v Australia and won 14-5 v Ireland).
“It’s good to be back home. Two-and-a-half weeks away, it can get long – especially if the results don’t go your way!” Soyizwapi told Independent Media on the sidelines of the Under Armour All Out Mile event at the Green Point Athletics Stadium earlier this week.
“What happened in Toulouse and the team being able to turn things around the way they did in the performances … I know the results didn’t go our way, but the way the team performed in London was exceptional – coming back from the disgraceful performance in Toulouse.
Really happy with the (London) performance, and the results will come.”
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Soyizwapi felt that they were able to identify the problems from the Toulouse tournament, and it is all about sticking to the plan devised by coach Neil Powell over many years.
“We just moved away from what works for us as a group, and I think for years, the system has proven itself on how it works. Consistency is all about nailing your excellence with each game and each process that you approach, and we just deviated from that,” the skipper said.
“It was great to have Angelo Davids and Jordan Hendrikse joining us in London. They brought different energy to the group, and I think we just stuck to our guns. We went back to what works for us.
“Our effort wasn’t faulted in Toulouse, but implementing what we plan as a group and our processes … that’s what actually works throughout the years, and that’s what happened in London as well.”
There are three big tournaments that will end off the season – the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham from July 29-31, the Los Angeles Sevens (the final Series event) from August 27-28 and then the Rugby Cup Sevens in Cape Town from September 9-11.
That will be the farewell to long-standing coach Powell, who will join the Sharks afterwards.
South Africa still lead the Series log on 124, but are just two ahead of Australia, with Argentina third on 118 and Fiji on 104. So, the Blitzboks could finish Powell’s tenure with a Commonwealth Games gold medal, the Series and Rugby Cup titles …
“It’s the elephant in the room, and with every tournament, we try and make him proud. It’s his last year … we don’t talk about it. You can just see by how the boys train – even though we haven’t shown him in terms of the results, how much we are going to miss him as a coach,” Soyizwapi said.
“But we won’t get too emotional – otherwise we won’t think about the game. It’s more important to be practical about how we go about things, and I think what will make him happy is if we enjoy ourselves out there. What we call enjoyment is implementing our processes and being successful in that.
“So, if we’re successful in just executing well and doing well, I think he will be happy with that send-off as well.”
