BlitzBokke pay dear price
South Africa suffered a huge blow when they lost their inspirational captain Kyle Brown with a broken ankle on the opening day of the Dubai Sevens tournament on Friday.
They will play Russia in the Bowl quarterfinals on Saturday after finishing third in their pool.
Brown suffered the injury in the first half of their first Pool C encounter against defending tournament champions, England, and he left the field on a stretcher.
He will return to South Africa on Saturday to undergo surgery to repair the damage to his ankle.
Earlier in the week livewire scrumhalf Branco du Preez also returned home because of a pulled hamstring, while former IRB Player of the Year Cecil Afrika did not travel to Dubai due to a niggling knee injury.
Despite the huge setback of losing their captain early on, the BlitzBokke still managed to score a good 19-10 win over England.
However, in their second match a try after the hooter by Portuguese veteran Aderito Esteves gave his side possibly their biggest victory in their history after their shock 14-10 victory over South Africa.
The BlitzBokke then faced Samoa in a decider for the second spot on the pool log and qualification for the Cup quarterfinals.
Two tries by Paul Perez gave the physical Samoans a 10-0 lead, but Chris Dry gave South Africa some hope after he had crashed over for an unconverted try near the end.
The BlitzBokke never got going in the slippery, wet conditions and made just too many basic errors in their second loss of the day. Warren Whiteley (forward) and Kevin Luiters (scrumhalf) made their World Series debut for South Africa.
