VIDEO: Last Chance saloon for BlunderBoks
REACTION: South Africa face a desperate battle to keep their Olympic Sevens hopes alive, after an error-riddled opening day in Paris.
The BlitsBoks, who deserve a more fitting moniker of BlunderBoks, are now faced with a last chance saloon situation in their final pool match on Thursday.
The South African team lost both their pool matches on Wednesday’s opening day at the Sevens tournament at Stade de France and now faces an uphill battle to remain in medal contention.
They play in Pool A, seen as the ‘group of death’, pitted them against superpowers New Zealand and Ireland, as well as emerging force Japan.
Ireland and the All Blacks emerged on top, both comfortably seeing off Japan and narrowly edging out South Africa.
Both showed they would be contenders at the business end of the competition, the All Blacks, in particular, impressing with some slick handling in their 17-5 win over the BlitzBoks.
South Africa plays Japan on Thursday and needs a big win to stay in contention for the quarterfinals.
The BlitzBoks also require some results in other pools going their way.
The two top teams of the three pools will qualify for the quarterfinals and the two best third-place finishers will complete the top eight in the knock-out phase for the podium.
A 5-10 loss to Ireland was followed by a 5-17 loss to New Zealand and although highly competitive on defence in both matches.
However, the South African attack lacked spark and a litany of errors further contributed to their demise.
Coach Philip Snyman delivered a frank post-match review, but held out hopes that they could still sneak into the play-offs.
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Frank review from coach @snymanphilip after day one of @Paris2024. #ICYMI, a wrap of the day’s play here: https://t.co/yu8QFYZ30G@OfficialTeamRSA pic.twitter.com/RwPJA1JGlP
— Springbok Sevens (@Blitzboks) July 24, 2024
“It is up to us,” he said about their play-off prospects, adding: “If we play like we did today [Wednesday] and do get ourselves up for the [Japan] game, we will be in trouble.
“Japan is going to come hard for us and we will make it a long day for ourselves.
“If we come out tomorrow [Friday] and everyone fires together on defence and on attack retain our ball, put points on the board, this team can play in the quarterfinals.
“We can even go further, but not if we play the way we did today [Wednesday].”
Sources: AFP & SARU
