Treu pays tribute to home crowd
South Africa's coach Paul Treu paid tribute to the home crowd at the Port Elizabeth leg of IRB Sevens World Series, after his side went unbeaten on Day One.
The hosts beat last week's Cup winners in Dubai, Samoa, France and Australia to reach the Cup quarterfinals of the third round of the Sevens World Series and will face the United States on Day Two.
"We can be happy with our results on Day One," said Treu.
"About a week ago we started well, but we just see it as we are progressing as a team. To come out here and give a performance like this on Day One is just testament to the boys. Now we can hopefully take the momentum into day two as well.
"The home crowd is helping, and the boys are getting a lot of energy from the crowd. We can see so many people coming out to support the team and this our one opportunity to play in front of a home crowd, so we would like to give them something to remember it by."
Portugal were the only side on Day One to win all three of their matches, and their head coach Frederico Sousa acknowledged the hard work of his players.
His side lost all five matches in the first round in Australia but have now reached two successive Cup quarterfinals.
"After Australia where we struggled we went home, looked at ourselves, and tried to work hard to try and make it harder for other teams," added Sousa.
"So the result of the hard work of the boys is us getting through and they can be very pleased with their efforts."
Frankie Horne, SA Sevens captain, after victory against Samoa: "It is just a mindset change. We lost to Samoa last week by three points, they went on to win the tournament, so just a mindset change, working on all our niggles this week and it worked for us today.
"The crowd is amazing but you can't get too hyped up by the crowd. But we are sapping energy from them and it works for some of the guys. He [Cecil Afrika] is just phenomenal. He reads the game like he was born on the Sevens pitch. He has a presence on the field to other teams."
