Blitzboks to face Australia in London Cup quarter-finals

The Springbok Sevens returned to winning ways in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series at Twickenham on Saturday, beating Argentina, Ireland and Kenya to top Pool D at the HSBC London Sevens, the penultimate tournament in the 2022 season.

The Blitzboks will face Australia in the Cup quarter-finals on Sunday – kick-off at 13h04 (SA time) – in what could prove to be the World Series decider for South Africa, as Argentina failed to qualify for the top-eight, with the men in green and gold likely to again overhaul the South Americans at the top on the overall standings.

For Springboks Sevens captain, Siviwe Soyizwapi, the results on the opening day of the tournament came as a result of the team returning to their core values and belief in the system that has worked so well for them since December.

“It was a good day, results wise, for us,” said Soyizwapi.

“There is always something to work on; we never have a perfect game and today was another example of that. We made some mistakes, but we did come out to make ourselves and the jersey proud and we achieved that, I feel.”

Soyizwapi complimented the national sevens system for their success on Saturday: “Last week we did not get the result, this week we got stuck in again and it worked out for us.

“The different results today from last weekend was because we went back to that system. Last week we were guilty of not doing so. We saw the result. We went back today to what works for us and the results are there.”

Soyizwapi said it was all about execution what their system required of each player.

“The effort was there last week; the implementation of our roles was not there,” he said. “We changed that. We were far from perfect, but we laid a good foundation today.”

Facing Australia, third on the World Series log, will be a tough task, as they were playing really good rugby, Soyizwapi said.

“We have tough opponents in Australia tomorrow,” he said.

“There is no easy game in the series and we will be up against it. The Aussies has been tough opponents all series long, so tomorrow we will have to be at our best if we want to stay successful.”