By Brenden Nel.
The Springbok Sevens team will face a daunting task against South Sea magicians Fiji in their Los Angeles Sevens quarterfinal on Sunday night after a disappointing pool round where they qualified by the skin of their teeth.
The Blitzboks may have opened their tournament with a win over Canada, but the wet conditions didn’t suit them at all as they were shocked by Uruguay and then slumped to lose to Ireland, meaning they had to qualify on points difference in the end.
Only Uruguay’s worse points difference gave them an advantage as they went into the Ireland game needing to win to top the pool but could also qualify as they had a 16 point advantage to play with.
Ireland were too physical and strong for a poor Blitzbok effort, winning 14-5, but not with a big enough margin to dump the South Africans out of the Cup competition.
However, given their own form and their lack of momentum, they will have to pull out all the stops on day two if they are to have any hope of racking up a lot of points from the tournament.
Ronald Brown did score first against Uruguay, but the plucky South American team, who ran Ireland close in their opening game then scored second half tries by Mateo Vinals and Bautista Basso before putting on a superb defensive effort to cause the upset of the tournament thus far.
The South Africans also looked off their game in the cold and wet final game against Ireland, struggling with the direct running and physicality of the Irish.
Dylan O’Grady scored a first half try before Shilton van Wyk showed some deft footwork to go in from the ensuing kickoff.
But a second half try by the hard-running Harry McNulty was all that was needed for the Irish to top the group as the Blitzboks struggled with their own handling and never seemed comfortable on the field.
The match against Fiji will take place at 8.45pm on Sunday evening.