Clinical Blitzboks do what's needed in Valladolid

The Springbok Sevens team qualified for the quarter-finals of the HSBC SVNS World Championship tournament in Valladolid on Friday with victories over Great Britain and Kenya, with the two positive results pushing them to the top of the pool.

However, the Blitzboks’ final pool position and ranking for the playoffs will depend on their result against Australia on Saturday at 1.23pm (SAST).

The Aussies won both their matches against the same opponents and also had to dig deep to come out on top.

The 17-12 victory over Great Britain came in extra-time, while the Kenya win was also a hard-fought affair, where a try each side of the half-time buzzer secured a 14-0 result.

In their opening match against Great Britain, the Blitzboks took their supporters through a variety of emotions, mostly frustration.

Expecting the high standards that resulted in five consecutive tournament victories, there was disappointment in the first half, as sloppy breakdown play and average first-time tackling saw the South Africans not only conceding the first try but also playing in their half of the field for large portions of the half.

Great Britain’s Charlton Kerr scored after breaking through a couple of tackles, as well as selling a delightful dummy that turned the South Africans around.

However, just before the half-time hooter, some magic brought sanity back, with Shilton van Wyk ghosting past defenders. The leading SA try-scorer for the season ran onto a delightful pass from Tristan Leyds, who unfortunately missed an easy conversion for a 5-5 scoreline at the break.

Some reinforcements from the bench had the desired effect as Sebastiaan Jobb ran onto a perfectly executed grubber by replacement Dewald Human, who also converted to make it 12-5 for the Blitzboks.

With seconds left to play though, a kick ahead caught the Blitzboks in limbo, with a wicked bounce away from a sweeping Ricardo Duarttee resulting in the British side scoring under the sticks, with the conversion forcing sudden death extra-time.

From the restart, a good chase and defence by Jayden Nell and Quewin Nortje forced a penalty, with the Blitzboks opting for a scrum. From that, Leyds rounded his man in a sweeping backline play to score the match winner.

The match against Kenya started much better. A structured defence by South Africa forced their African counterparts onto the back foot and a rushed pass was intercepted by Van Wyk, who scored under the posts. Leyds converted for a 7-0 lead.

Kenya did not respond well to the in-your-face defence by the Blitzboks and made some handling errors, one of those with an open tryline in front of them, much to the relief of the team in green, who kept their lead going into the break.

The second half was frantic from Kenya but the Blitzboks kept their composure and did not get involved in the physical stuff.

The Kenyans lost a player to the sin bin when he slapped a pass down and the Blitzboks struck. They opted for a scrum from the resulting penalty and moved the ball to Human, who presented the perfect cross kick to Jobb, who finished in the corner. Duarttee converted for a 14-0 lead.

Kenya again came close but a good intervention by Nell thwarted that try scoring opportunity.

Scores

South Africa 17 (5), Great Britain 12 (5)

SA – Tries: Shilton van Wyk, Sebastiaan Jobb, Tristan Leyds. Conversion: Dewald Human.

GB – Tries: Charlton Kerr, Ben Salmon. Conversion: Tom Burton.

South Africa 14 (7), Kenya 0 (0)

SA – Tries: Shilton van Wyk, Sebastiaan Jobb. Conversions: Tristan Leyds, Ricardo Duarttee.