If there is one major difference in terms of the Blitzboks’ World Sevens Series campaign so far, it has to be the fact that they ended day one at the Sydney Sevens having lost a game.
The South Africans had a scrappy start to their final Pool A game on Saturday against England, who also managed to edge them in the final of the Cape Town leg, and a failure to convert any of their tries in Sydney saw the Wellington winners fall 21-15.
This means that England top Pool A and the Blitzboks end second. South Africa will face the United States in the Cup quarter-finals at 3.42am SA time on Sunday.
The English set up a 7-0 lead before Seabelo Senatla received a beautiful inside pass from Ruhan Nel in midfield and sniped through defenders to bring the Blitzboks into the game.
Brilliant work at a breakdown set up another try for the South Africans on the stroke of halftime.
The Blitzboks took the ball through the hands and found Justin Geduld on the outside, who switched the direction of play in a superb manner with a pinpoint cross-kick that found Chris Dry on the far left, who finished off to give Neil Powell’s men a 10-7 lead at the break.
Geduld took matters into his own hands shortly after the restart kick as he powered through defenders to dot down for their third five-pointer.
England mastered probably the best dummy switch in the tournament that saw danger man Dan Norton put into space next to the touchline to score and take England to within one point of South Africa, and shortly afterwards they hit again when substitute James Rodwell gathered a cross-kick and scored England’s third converted try to clinch the match.
In the Blitzboks’ second match of the day, a brace by Senatla enabled the South Africans to come from behind to beat Kenya 14-7 in a tight encounter.
The Blitzboks struggled to get into the game and trailed 0-7 at the break, but the momentum that the fellow Africans had enjoyed with their direct, physical style was halted when Eden Agero was yellow-carded.
Senatla got his first try just before the Kenyans got their seventh man back, and his second came after Rosko Specman kicked and chased, before being taken down by two defenders.
He did, however, get the ball away with a well-timed pop pass to Senatla, who did enough to finish off Specman’s fine work with a try.
And as the game drew to an end, Kenya were on attack again, but ruined any chance of a draw when they knocked the ball forward on attack.
Earlier in the day, the Blitzboks whipped Japan 32-0, almost an identical win to their one in Wellington last week.
Senatla built on his impressive try-scoring record – after overtaking Fabian Juries as the Springboks Sevens’ all-time leading try-scorer – as he produced a hat trick.
Kwagga Smith, Werner Kok and Siviwe Soyizwapi also added to the South Africans’ tally.
Sydney Cup Quarter-Finals (Sunday, SA time)
2.58am: England vs Argentina
3.20am: New Zealand vs Fiji
3.42am: United States vs South Africa
4.04am: Wales vs Australia
wynona.louw@inl.co.za