There’s nothing like a bit of rest to bring back that Blitzbok vibe and intensity
DURBAN: After a long and victorious 2016/2017 season, the BlitzBokke were thrown back in the mix with a brand new target on their backs in the Sevens World Series leg which began in Dubai last November.
Cape Town soon followed, where the Blitz Bokke fell short while not looking their best, as this home leg continues to evade them. Coach Neil Powell admitted back then that their poor performance in December seemed to be a mental thing, and perhaps a bit of fatigue carrying over from the season before.
Now however, back at it in the new year, with the Sydney Sevens beginning tomorrow with a game against Papua New Guinea, the Blitzbokke are looking refreshed and ready to go, according to the coach. “We looked back at what went wrong in Cape Town and it seemed to be a mental thing,” said Powell. “We had some technical mishaps, but I think the long 2017 season got to the players.
“That said, the rest did wonders to all of them and I could feel the intensity and vibe in the air in the last week or so.”
There is a long season still ahead of the defending champions, made even longer by the fact that they will be back in Sydney in mid April for a different sort of challenge.
“We see this tournament as a bit of a trial run for the Commonwealth Games as well, so want to go out there and measure ourselves against the best in the world.”
There has been a lot of planning and management going on from Powell and his crew as they ready their highly developed athletes for the rigours of this latest leg. Sydney is a special tournament, not only because it is played over three days, but because the BlitzBokke are the current champions.
“The three-day tournaments are a bit different from the normal ones on the circuit and this Sydney tournament does have a bit of a Hong Kong Sevens feel due to it due to the fact that it is played over three days,” said Powell.
Planning for this leg even began a bit earlier for the South Africans as they factored in the travel-fatigue that can occur when traveling so far east.
“We arrived a bit earlier than normal. It is not the easiest thing to travel to Australia and New Zealand from South Africa as it does take a day or two to get back into the flow of things,” Powell added.
South Africa take on Spain and England in the rest of their pool games on Saturday.