Blitzbokke keep feet on ground

 

The Blitzbokke moved to second place on the Sevens World Series rankings after lifting the Cup in Dubai last week, and have now set their sights on retaining their home title at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.

 

Star playmaker Cecil Afrika, who was one of three South Africans named in the official team of the tournament last week, said that whilst they appreciate the support of the home crowd in Port Elizabeth, the Blitzbokke will be doing their best to remain focused.

 

"It is obviously nice to be back home, but as a team we are not going to put a lot of pressure on ourselves, we are just going to go out there and do what we do best," he said.

 

Afrika added that while it will be fantastic to grab a rare double of consecutive tournament wins, they are not getting to far ahead of themselves at this stage.

 

"It will be great to win at home after winning last week in Dubai, but as a team we do not focus on the outcome, we focus on the process. If the processes are right at the end of the day then the result will look after itself," he said.

 

Flyer Rayno Benjamin explained that they will need to start afresh this week as the rest of the teams would have learned lessons from what happened in Dubai.

 

"We need to go back to the training field and work on some things that we didn't get right in Dubai but we are looking forward to this weekend in Port Elizabeth.

 

"We need to start from scratch like last week, so we need to go back to the basics, catch up with where we went wrong and start building the team spirit again for this weekend," he said.