On Saturday, the unbeaten Blitzboks defeated Fiji in their second Pool A game by 17-7 before putting in a polished display in their final pool game against France, winning 26-7. The quarter-final against Great Britain ended in a 21-14 win for SA.

South Africa will play Samoa at 15:46 in the cup semi-finals after USA and New Zealand meet in the first clash of the last-four stage.

“We need to do all of that again on Sunday if we want to do justice to the efforts [on Saturday],” coach Sandile Ngcobo warned.

Also read: Blitzboks edge GB for spot in semis

Reflecting on Saturday’s performances, he added: “We had some big games and the team fought hard for each other and that was very pleasing to see. Fiji will always be a tough opponent, but we applied good pressure at the right time.

“The match against France was a different challenge and again we managed to adapt and use very good defence to get the win.”

Ngcobo was incredibly pleased about the win over Great Britain, a team that beat the Blitzboks in the Hong Kong and Dubai legs of the 2022-23 Series.

“That was personal – they won those matches because we allowed them to,” said Ngcobo.

“It was our mistakes and our failures in those games and that hurt. So today, we needed to fix that and we did.

“There were still errors and issues, but we pulled that one through thanks to a great effort from the squad. They are starting to execute the way we want and that brings the results, along with the effort.”

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