Mike Greenaway
THE Springbok Sevens team showed improvement in Hong Kong at the weekend and, critically, earned enough log points to qualify for the Grand Final of the World Sevens Series in Madrid at the end of May.
The Blitzboks finished sixth at the Hong Kong Sevens tournament, which was their third-best finish in the season so far. They remain in the top eight on the overall log and will be part of the winner-takes-all spectacle in Spain.
“It was important for us to stop the slide down the rankings, and I am pleased we could do that,” said interim head coach Philip Snyman.
“We also topped our pool for the first time in a while, which is evidence of the team’s improvement from the North American leg.”
However, after topping their pool, the Blitzboks were beaten in their last two outings, losing 15-0 to Australia in the quarter-finals on Saturday, and 33-14 to Fiji yesterday in the fifth-place play-off.
Snyman said those results were tough to swallow, especially after the good form showed in the pool: “There are no excuses for that. Missing tackles and poor basics cannot be excused, but to play the knock-out matches without three playmakers, including your captain, was a tough ask.”
Justin Geduld was suspended for three matches after a dangerous tackle in the opening match against Ireland and Selvyn Davids for a similar offence in the final pool game against Samoa, a match that also brought an end to Ronald Brown's participation after he sustained an ankle injury.
“We missed their influence and experience,” said Snyman.
“They are big moment players and we were short of that ability in the last two matches. That did expose us in a way, as we still lack self-belief when the chips are down. That is a work-on for us in the next couple of weeks.”
With their tickets to Madrid booked, the next tournament (Singapore, May 3-5) will be used to fine-tune their squad for the trip to Spain and the repechage tournament for Olympic Games qualification in Monaco in June.
"I will use the next couple of weeks to test more combinations and see how that works for us,” Snyman said.
“We have to work on staying calm in the big moments. We will look at the compilation of the squad and individuals who can keep calm under pressure.
“We managed to regain some momentum and need to keep growing our belief. It was heart-warming to see some smiles on the players’ faces off the field, and how our conduct off the field improved.
“We also improved our defence considerably, which helped us up our turnover stats dramatically. So there were many good points. Now we need to eliminate the rest of the bad habits we have,” Snyman said.