Kok and Horne in Olympic mix
The fourth consecutive victory came as a silver lining to an otherwise gloomy day for SA Rugby after the Springboks and Junior Springboks tasted defeat at the hands of Ireland and Argentina Under-20 respectively.
Kok showed that he had fully recovered from his knee injury sustained last year as he walked away with the Player of the Final award after they beat Brazil 19-7.
Springbok Sevens coach Neil Powell travelled to Rome to follow the progress of Werner Kok and Frankie Horne amongst others and afterwards said he was happy with what he saw. Powell will name his provisional Olympic Games squad next week.
"It was good to see Werner [Kok] and Frankie [Horne] back in action and they definitely threw their names in the hat for selection. Both had to work very hard with conditioning coach Johan van Wyk to get back to a level where they could compete again.
"Credit to all of them, it is testament of the character of those players, who really worked hard to get back in shape," Powell said.
The coach was equally pleased with the performances of Branco du Preez, Siviwe Soyizwapi, Sandile Ngcobo and Stephan Dippenaar, all contracted Springbok Sevens players.
"It is probably not fair to highlight individuals, but the group performed well. They all had limited playing time in the World Sevens Series this year and used every opportunity. I have a couple of selection headaches this week, that is for sure," he added.
