Brown and his Sevens knights on a quest in land of Smaug

KYLE Brown and the other captains in the World Rugby Sevens Series had a photoshoot yesterday on the film set of the “The Hobbit” near Hamilton in New Zealand, but Brown says he and his team members are the ones hoping to be the giants of the series come Sunday night.

The Blitzboks currently lead the series, with hosts New Zealand second. They face Papua New Guinea, Russia and England in Pool B of the tournament that starts on Saturday at the FMG Waikato Stadium.

Brown has been reinstated as captain after Philip Snyman was injured last week in Sydney and, despite asking to be relieved of the captaincy a while ago, he is more than willing to once again take over the leadership responsibilities.

Brown was the regular captain of the side for a number of seasons, but stood down from the captaincy at the end of the 2015/16 series, when Snyman took over. Snyman, however, has returned to South Africa due to injury, and Brown accepted the captaincy on the request of coach Neil Powell.

“There are a good couple of leaders in the squad, and a great bunch of guys, so I am pleased to lead them,” said Brown.

“In fact, leading the team will not be the most difficult part of taking over from Philip. It would rather be on the field where he adds that something extra. He is ruthless on the ground and on defence and whoever takes over from him in the starting line-up will have big shoes to fill this weekend.”

The Blitzboks lost 29-0 to Australia in the final last week in the fourth round of the competition, and are determined to make up for that “wipe-out” in the final. “We progressed so well during the week into the tournament .... and then came that final,” said Brown, the third most capped Blitzbok player ever. “Australia were fantastic, but we were really poor.

“Maybe the moment was too big for us, but the fact is that we had some great matches during the tournament, such as the semi-final against the USA.

“That is the type of performance we want to replicate this weekend. We like to judge ourselves on our own effort and we did not implement that in the final. That will drive us this weekend.”

The two replacements for the injured players, Zain Davids and Muller du Plessis, will join the squad in place of Snyman and Ruhan Nel, who also returned home injured today.

“We are looking forward to the weekend. I am happy for Muller, who was still at school last year, as we are looking to build depth in the group. He and Zain will be keen to slot in, but they only arrive in the early hours of the morning and the field session tomorrow will be testing for them for sure,” said Brown.