World Championship: BlitzBoks dig deep to qualify for quarterfinals

DAY ONE WRAP: The BlitzBoks made it back-to-back wins on Day One of the HSBC SVNS World Championship tournament in Valladolid on Friday

The Springbok Sevens team qualified for the quarterfinals with victories over Great Britain and Kenya.

However, the Blitzboks’ final pool position and ranking for the play-offs will depend on their result against Australia on Saturday at 13.23 (SA time).

The Aussies won both their matches against the same opponents and also had to dig deep to come out on top.

The 17-12 victory over Great Britain came in extra time, while the Kenya win was also a hard-fought affair, where a try each side of the half-time buzzer secured a 14-0 result.

In their opening match against Great Britain, the BlitzBoks took their supporters through a variety of emotions, mostly frustration.

Expecting the high standards that resulted in five consecutive tournament victories, there was disappointment in the first half, as sloppy breakdown play and average first-time tackling saw the South Africans not only conceding the first try but also playing in their half of the field for large portions of the half.

Great Britain’s Charlton Kerr scored after breaking through a couple of tackles, as well as selling a delightful dummy that turned the South Africans around.

However, just before the half-time hooter, some magic brought sanity back, with Shilton van Wyk ghosting past defenders. The leading SA try-scorer for the season ran onto a delightful pass from Tristan Leyds, who unfortunately missed an easy conversion for a 5-5 scoreline at the break.

Some reinforcements from the bench had the desired effect as Sebastiaan Jobb ran onto a perfectly executed grubber by replacement Dewald Human, who also converted to make it 12-5 for the BlitzBoks.

With seconds left to play though, a kick ahead caught the BlitzBoks in limbo, with a wicked bounce away from a sweeping Ricardo Duarttee resulting in the British side scoring under the sticks, with the conversion forcing sudden death extra time.

From the restart, a good chase and defence by Jayden Nell and Quewin Nortje forced a penalty, with the BlitzBoks opting for a scrum. From that, Leyds rounded his man in a sweeping backline play to score the match-winner.

The match against Kenya started much better. A structured defence by South Africa forced their African counterparts onto the back foot, and a rushed pass was intercepted by Van Wyk, who scored under the posts. Leyds converted for a 7-0 lead.

Kenya did not respond well to the in-your-face defence by the BlitzBoks and made some handling errors, one of those with an open tryline in front of them, much to the relief of the team in green, who kept their lead going into the break.

The second half was frantic from Kenya, but the Blitzboks kept their composure and did not get involved in the physical stuff.

The Kenyans lost a player to the sin bin when he slapped a pass down, and the Blitzboks struck. They opted for a scrum from the resulting penalty and moved the ball to Human, who presented the perfect cross kick to Jobb, who finished in the corner. Duarttee converted for a 14-0 lead.

Kenya again came close, but a good intervention by Nell thwarted that try-scoring opportunity.

The scorers:

South Africa 17-12 Great Britain

For South Africa:
Tries: Shilton van Wyk, Sebastiaan Jobb, Tristan Leyds
Con: Dewald Human

For GB:
Tries: Charlton Kerr, Ben Salmon
Con: Tom Burton

South Africa 14-0 Kenya

For SA:
Tries: Shilton van Wyk, Sebastiaan Jobb
Cons: Tristan Leyds, Ricardo Duarttee

For Kenya: None

Day One Men’s Results:

New Zealand 40-0 Uruguay
Argentina 26-17 Germany
Australia 15-10 Kenya
South Africa 17-12 Great Britain
Fiji 26-12 France
Spain 26-21 USA
New Zealand 33-12 Germany
Argentina 40-14 Uruguay
Australia 26-21 Great Britain
South Africa 14-0
Fiji 19-7 USA
Spain 14-19 France

Day Two fixtures (Kick-off is local time: GMT +2 hours):

Uruguay v Germany – 12.17
Argentina v New Zealand – 12.39
Kenya v Great Britain – 13.01
South Africa v Australia 13.23
France v USA – 13.50
Spain v Fiji – 14.12

Quarterfinals – starting at 16.37

Ninth-place semifinals – starting at 18.54