Cape Town – The Blitzboks surely can’t wait to feel the green, green grass of home under their feet at Cape Town Stadium this weekend, but their coach Neil Powell has warned them that they are in a “dangerous pool”.
Powell has retained his experience-packed Dubai-winning side for the second leg of the World Sevens Series.
The Blitzboks will face Russia, USA and Australia in Pool A on a tough opening day and Powell wants his men to be ready, as soon as they step on to the pitch.
“We need to be sharp tomorrow, as it is a dangerous pool, with all three teams capable of beating a more favoured team. The fact that we play at home will lift the players, no doubt, but we cannot just rock up and expect the crowd to motivate us and win the games for us with their support. We need to deliver and get them in the game,” Powell said.
Powell’s team will go into the home event unchanged as they’ll look to not only build on their roaring momentum from the Dubai tournament, but also to defend the title they won at last year’s inaugural Cape Town event.
And if the Blitzboks manage to bag a second win in as many tournaments on Sunday, they will secure their fourth consecutive title at home, after also winning the last two tournaments hosted in Port Elizabeth in 2013 and 2014.
And judging by their efforts in Dubai, the South Africans stand a very good chance of doing so.
The Blitzboks won all of their matches during their trip to Dubai, and although they were made to work hard for a win at times on day one, they were near-unstoppable once they got going.
The Blitzboks in a training session in Cape Town this week. Capetonians will be flocking to the Cape Town Stadium to see them in action this weekend. Picture: Chris Ricco/BackpagePix
And, of course, their performances against New Zealand in the quarter-finals and against Olympic champions Fiji in the final showed just how good the men in green and gold are.
They produced complete performances on attack, defence and at the breakdowns, and there were also several brilliant individual moments, but Powell also highlighted a few areas that still needed improving.
“I was happy with how the guys performed, especially on day two. We were a bit hard on the guys for not playing to the best of their ability on day one, especially after that game against Scotland. Everything came together after that game against New Zealand. But there’s always room for improvement and I think one area we’re going to look to improve is our ability to hold on to the ball, especially in contact. And then our line-outs and kickoff retrieval,” Powell said.
“But have to start all over again and we have to approach it as a new beginning. We have a good foundation and we have the first game against Russia to build on it, and also the rest of the tournament.”
And with a combined total of 375 tournament caps, the Springbok Sevens squad is the most experienced among the 16 contenders for the Cape Town title.
“We are fortunate to be able to again field an experienced squad. There were niggles from Dubai, but those were expected as the guys have not played for a couple of months. Luckily for us, we came back from Dubai without any serious injuries and lots of belief in our systems,” he added.
The Blitzboks should not be lacking any confidence whatsoever following their dream start, but with the pressure and expectation heavily piled on the home team this weekend, Powell introduced some special measures this week to try and re-focus the team’s goals and mindset.
DUBAI WINNERS: South Africa
“We had to start from scratch again. The players are experienced enough to be able to do that themselves, so I hope the triggers we provided will be successful,” said Powell.
The coach also revealed the team’s main goals for the seasons.
“We have two goals for this season. One is to become the number one team in the world, and the other is to develop the next generation of Sevens stars. We also have to develop the next generation of leaders for 2020. We want to start with that process and come Wellington and Sydney, we want to introduce these youngsters to the World Sevens circuit,” he said.
With all the first-class examples set by the senior members of the squad, those youngsters shouldn’t lack for inspiration.
Blitzbok squad:
Chris Dry, Philip Snyman, Dylan Sage, Kwagga Smith, Werner Kok, Kyle Brown, Branco du Preez, Rosko Specman, Justin Geduld, Cecil Afrika, Ruhan Nel, Seabelo Senatla, Siviwe Soyizwapi
SA fixtures on Saturday:
12.49pm: v Russia (match 8)
4.10pm: v USA (match 16)
7.56pm: v Australia (match 24, last match of the day)