Blitzboks out to use home pressures to their advantage
PLAYING in front of your home crowd has a lot of positives. But it also comes with added pressure. And Springbok Sevens captain Philip Snyman plans to use that pressure to his advantage in Cape Town this weekend.
On Saturday and Sunday, the Blitzboks will look to use every bit of momentum they gained by winning the opening leg of the World Sevens Series in Dubai, but Snyman also made it clear that floating on the cloud of their first victory of the 201718 season could be detrimental to their success going forward.
“There is a bit of pressure (being the hosts). You only get one chance a year to play in front of your home crowd, and you can use that to your advantage,” Snyman said.
“To run out in front of 60 000 and seeing the South African flags and knowing there’s more fans at home – you can use that pressure as something positive.
“I think it gave us a lot of confidence and good momentum (winning in Dubai). In the past we’ve seen that if you start a tournament well, you get a head start on the log. But we also have to put that victory behind us because this week is going to bring its own challenges and different teams, and if you remain fixated on (that) you’ll stay in the same place while everyone else moves forward.”
With only a couple of weeks of training together ahead of the opening leg, it’s understandable that a bit of rustiness would pop up here and there during the first few matches of first leg of the season.
So there might be a few things that need fixing, but Snyman said he is looking forward to seeing how the team can go once they fully get back into the swing of things.
“Everyone went to go play fifteens, in the off-season there were only five of us at training. Uganda came for us and we realised that we’re going to have to be at our best in every game from here on,” Snyman said.
“We want to be at our best, so we know there’s still work to do. We got a bit of our rhythm back towards the end of the Dubai tournament, but I think there’s still quite a few things that we can work on. And if we can fix one or two things this weekend, we can do even better.”
Blitzboks playmaker Cecil Afrika also said that the excitement to play at home is building in the Blitzboks camp, and added that there was a calmer vibe during yesterday’s training session.
“It was a good weekend in Dubai in terms of results, but I also think there are a lot of things we can improve as a team,” Afrika said.
“We have this week to fix it, and today the guys were a lot more relaxed. There’s excitement in the camp and the guys are looking forward to playing good rugby this weekend.”
And when it comes to support at the Cape Town Stadium, Afrika said he’s expecting what should be a pumping crowd to very efficiently do their part in helping the Blitzboks through the weekend again.
“It’s the highlight of our stops, the crowd carries us through, and I’d like to say thank you to everybody who bought a ticket to come and support us.
“It’s always nice to have people there pulling you through, and I believe they will create a great atmosphere for us this weekend.”