Blitzbokke finish 4th in Las Vegas
The Springbok Sevens team extended their overall lead in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series this weekend after claiming fourth place finish at the HSBC USA Sevens in Las Vegas on Sunday.
The consistency of the South African performances saw them increasing their lead over second placed New Zealand to ten points as they contested their fifth consecutive semifinal of the series, the only team in the World Series to do so.
The Blitzboks did lose 12-10 to Argentina in the semifinal and conceded a podium place to Fiji, who beat them 26-22 in the bronze final, but Springbok Sevens coach, Neil Powell, was not desponded at all.
The tournament saw a number of interesting results, with the USA becoming the fifth team to win a tournament in the 2017/18 World Series.
Powell said he was pleased with many aspects of the team’s performance this weekend.
“We are looking for consistency and given the number of new faces and some injuries, we did well in that regard. We had a poor opening match against Wales on Friday and did not play our best rugby against Argentina on Sunday, but did well in the other matches. We don’t always test measure ourselves on the results, but also the way we play. Obviously, we will have to improve come Vancouver, but our depth was tested very nicely today. We want the new guys to play against the likes of Fiji, England and New Zealand to see if they can make the step-up.”
Springbok Sevens captain, Philip Snyman, said the experience gained in Las Vegas will now have to be implemented in Vancouver next weekend.
“We started to play better the more we played together. The learning curve is a steep one at this level and the younger guys will be better prepared come next week after this weekend. We will work hard this coming week and I am really looking forward to the tournament in Canada.”