The South African Sevens side bounced back from their disappointment in Singapore with a strong opening win in the Vancouver Sevens on Saturday evening, beating Spain 31-12.
The Blitzboks had suffered three consecutive losses in Singapore, ending a 36 match unbeaten run and then crashing out of the Cup and 5th place playoffs in the South Asian country, but had spoken all week about raising their standards when they got to Canada.
Things didn’t kick off well for them as they conceded the first try as Eduardo Lopez crossed early to put Spain in the lead.
But that didn’t last long as the Blitzboks kicked into gear and scored three first half tries, the first coming through a speedy run by Darron Adonis.
He was followed by a brace on either side of halftime by captain Siviwe Soyizwapi, who took control of the game before Dewald Human looked to have burrowed over the line with the referee the only one seeing the grounding.
Impi Visser added the last try to complete the big win but Spain found some consolation as they scored in the final minute through Tiago Romero to put themselves into double figures.
The Blitzboks will face hosts Canada and Australia in their next pool games, with the Wallaby Sevens in second place on the HSBC World Series standings behind them at the moment.
The Blitzboks will face Canada at 23.26 (CAT, GMT+2) while their final pool game against Australia takes place at 03.33.
Kenya caused a major upset by taking some revenge on the USA from last week’s loss in Singapore, pipping the Americans 19-17 in a closely fought game.
Last weekend a poor conversion cost the Kenyans as they lost the same fixture 12-10 when they should at least have drawn. Kenya are in the same pool as Fiji and England with the Fijians beating the English side 27-12 in their opening pool game.