Blitzboks ‘have a problem with England’
JOHANNESBURG: Expect Neil Powell to spend a good few hours studying video footage of the England Sevens team in the coming days.
This after the Blitzboks fell to the English in the Cup final of the Vancouver Sevens tournament at the weekend. England are the only team Powell’s men have lost to in the current series.
On Sunday, the Blitzboks were downed 19-7 by England to lose just their third game in the World Sevens Series; after previously losing to England in the final in Cape Town, 19-17, and 21-15 in a pool game in Sydney a few weeks ago.
Powell’s men also drew to England in pool play this past weekend, in Vancouver.
Besides those defeats and the draw, the Blitzboks have swept aside every other opponent, including New Zealand and Fiji.
Powell though will be keen to find a weakness in the England team, especially with four tournaments still to be played.
“It does seem that we have a problem against England,” admitted Powell after the Vancouver event. “We will have to go and look how and where to do things better when we face them.”
The Blitzboks though, despite coming up short at the weekend, still enjoy a healthy lead atop the standings after the sixth tournament of 10. Wins in Dubai, Wellington, Sydney and Las Vegas and runners-up finishes in Cape Town and Vancouver have left them 23 points clear of secondplaced England and 26 points in front of defending champions Fiji.
And making this phenomenal run even more remarkable is the fact that Powell has had to chop and change his squad almost every tournament. Injuries and Super Rugby commitments have robbed him of some of the team’s biggest stars, among them Seabelo Senatla, Kwagga Smith, Kyle Brown, Justin Geduld, Stephan Dippenaar and Rosko Specman, one of the stars of the last two tournaments.
While disappointed with his team’s showing in the knockout rounds in Vancouver, Powell was happy with his team’s overall showing in the tournaments in North America over the past fortnight.
“If anyone offered me that (a win and a runners-up place) before the trip, I would have taken it,” Powell said. “From that perspective, it was a very good trip for us. But we did not play well. We started well against Canada (in the quarters), but that was our only proper performance.
“We were not clinical enough on attack and did not keep the ball long enough before being turned over again (in the final). We used one of our opportunities, but all three times we surrendered possession unnecessarily, (and) England scored. You cannot win finals playing like that and you cannot expect to beat a good team like England playing like that.”
Powell though will quickly put the disappointment of losing the Vancouver final behind him. “We have a short turnaround and in two-and-a-half weeks we will be on our way to Hong Kong again. We still need to do medicals, but it seems that we will lose a number of players and might need to travel to Hong Kong with a much younger squad. We have some hard work ahead of us,” he said, including finding a way to get the better of England.
The Hong Kong starts on 7 April. Sevens