SA Sevens still flying high
The Springbok Sevens managed to strengthen their lead atop the HSBC Sevens World Series standings, despite their poor showing in the weekend’s tournament in Singapore.
The Blitzbokke came into the Singapore tournament after having been blown away by Fiji in the Hong Kong Cup Final by 22-0 a week earlier. The South Africans have yet to win a tournament in Hong Kong, and the Fijians proved that 2017 would not be the year for South Africa to buck that trend.
The Singapore sevens tournament saw numerous upsets and a fair share of surprising results. Neither of the series leaders, South Africa or Fiji, contested for the gold medal for example, both having been knocked out in the cup quarterfinals.
South Africa, however managed to maintain their place atop the series standings by defeating Fiji by 19-14 in what was previously known as the plate semi-final before going down to New Zealand by 17- 12 in the plate final.
Despite only finishing sixth in the Singapore tournament, the South African sevens managed to extend the points gap at the top of the series standings due to their victory over second-place Fiji. England, who are currently third overall, finished third in the Singapore tournament, drawing only two points behind Fiji on the series table.
It is yet to be seen whether or not Grahamstown local, Rosko Specman, will be available for selection for the last tournaments of the season. Specman has missed out on the previous two tournaments due to injury, and his absence has been sorely missed.
With only two tournaments left in the series calendar, the Springbok sevens are 25 points clear of Fiji.
The series will now move over to Europe, where they will play in Paris on the weekend of 13-14 May, before crossing to England and the spiritual home of rugby, Twickenham for the weekend of 20-21 May.