The Blitzbokke won the first ever play-off for third place in the HSBC Sevens World Series, beating Australia 17-7 at Skilled Park on the Gold Coast on Saturday.
Chris Dry, Paul Delport and Boom Prinsloo scored the SA tries while Pama Fou got a consolation try for the hosts.
Earlier in the day, the Blitzbokke beat France 14-5 the Cup quarter-finals thanks to tries from Dry and Robert Ebersohn.
The Boks were totally outplayed 24-7 by a dominant Fiji in the semi-final though. The eventual tournament winners put on a display of seven a side rugby that could be used as a definition of the sport in any coaching DVD. Power, pace and skill in buckets, and the South Africans just could not live with the Islanders. In their defence, not many side would have, but based on what we saw at the Gold Coast this weekend, the series is again looking like a two horse race with the Blitzbokke heading up the chasing pack …
Fiji went on to deservedly win the first title of the season – beating a New Zealand side that were unusually mistake ridden 26-12 in the Cup Final.
In a brutal blow, South Africa lost Cecil Afrika on the first day after the IRB Player of the Year sustained a rib injury during the pool games on Friday. Coach Paul Treu confirmed that Afrika will remain with the team and will travel with the squad on Sunday to Dubai.
“We are disappointed that we could not protect our ball much better against Fiji, who was clearly the best side on day two. However, there were many positives over the two days for us. Robert did well in his first outing for us in two years, Chase Minnaar played for the first time in a year while Renfred Dazel is fully fit and played with no ill effects from his knee injury which has kept him out since the Las Vegas tournament last season.
“We already started much better than last season, when we somehow could not get going from the beginning – I think that is the most pleasing aspect of the weekend for us. We now have 17 points and for us that is a reasonably good start. It is a long way to go, there are eight more tournaments remaining and now we need to regroup and prepare for Dubai,” said Treu.
South Africa’s results on day two at Skilled Park, Gold Coast
Quarter-finals
SA 14, France 5
Semi-finals
Fiji 24, SA 7
Third place play-off
SA 17, Australia 5
Other results:
Cup Final
Fiji 26, New Zealand 12
Plate Final
Wales 26, Samoa 15
Bowl Final
Argentina 17, Scotland 14
Shield Final
Papua New Guinea 31, Japan 19
The World Series log after round one:
1. Fiji 22 points
2. New Zealand 19
3. South Africa 17
4. Australia 15
5. Wales 13
6. Samoa 12
7. England 10
8. France 10
9. Argentina 8
Suffering another body blow, next Friday in Dubai, South Africa will play in Pool B against New Zealand, the USA and Portugal.
Gold Coast finalists, Fiji and New Zealand are automatic top seeds of Pool A & B, but instead of 3rd and 4th place getting automatic top spot in pools C & D, France and Wales were the lucky picks from the Cup quarter-finalist bag those spots …
