Bok Sevens lose World Series lead

GLASGOW: The Springbok Sevens team lost their overall HSBC Sevens World Series lead to Fiji in Glasgow yesterday after only managing to win the plate final of the Scotland Sevens at Scotstoun Stadium.

South Africa, who had a four point lead over Fiji coming into the penultimate tournament of the series, suffered a 15-0 defeat against the Pacific Islanders in the cup quarter-finals.

The defeat pushed them into the plate section, where wins over Australia (21-12) and Scotland (12-10) resulted in them winning that competition and earning 13 tournament points.

Fiji went on to win the cup final and overhauled South Africa, who they now lead by five with the last tournament of the 2014/15 series being played at Twickenham in London next weekend.

New Zealand, who started the tournament nine points adrift of the Springbok Sevens, also clawed back that lead and will be going to England three points behind the Blitzbokke.

Maximum

Springbok Sevens coach Neil Powell expressed disappointment after the Fiji result, but was happy in the way the team responded by beating Australia and Scotland to claim maximum points in the Plate section.

“It was a massive game for us against Fiji and the result did not go our way and that was disappointing,” Powell said.

“We managed to beat Australia and also played well against Scotland, especially in that second half of the final, where we had to defend for a long time.”

The coach admitted the team did not have the best of weekends in Scotland.

“It felt like we could not get out of the blocks on day one. It did not help that we suffered early injuries like losing Philip (Snyman) the day before the tournament, and then Cecil (Afrika) yesterday. Against Fiji we could not keep the ball and although we defended well, we paid the price.”

But Powell said all is not lost.

“We are still in it and nothing has changed in our aim to win the overall series. We will have a look where we can improve before London. Our goal here was to stretch the lead against Fiji and we could not do that. Going to London we will have it all to do. We need to get the confidence of the players up.”

Powell will have an injury assessment of the squad today and will then make a call on any injury replacements if needed.

The coach congratulated the squad, who have qualified for the Olympic Games in Rio with a guaranteed top four finish.

“It is great to qualify, that was our first and foremost goal for the year and it is a tremendous achievement for us.”

The pools for London have been announced. South Africa will play in pool D against the USA, France and Portugal.

Fiji will play in pool A with Canada, Argentina and Samoa; New Zealand in pool B with Australia, Wales and Japan and England will compete in pool C with Scotland, Kenya and Brazil. – ANA