Heartbreak for Tuks women’s sevens team in France
The Delta Drone TuksWomensRugby7's team, who was the defending champion, lost their title in controversial manner in the last seconds of the final of this year's Stanislas Sevens tournament in France.
The Delta Drone TuksWomensRugby7’s this past weekend lost out in the dying minutes in defending the Stanislas Sevens-title they won last year in Nancy, France.
With less than a minute left to play in the final, the Tuks-team was leading 14-12 against Poland. Unfortunately, there is a good reason for the saying about a certain “Fat Lady that needs to sing”. A Polish player was on the attack. Tuks captain Libbie Janse van Rensburg tackled her and the ball was lost forward.
According to coach Riaan van der Merwe the referee indicated the knock on but allowed play to continue that enabled Poland to score and win the tournament. The final score was 17-14.
Both Van der Merwe and Janse van Rensburg are disappointed about the outcome, but they also know that the reality of any sport is that you got to be able to take the good with the bad.
The coach believes there were some positive aspects that came out of the tournament.
“The most important is the way the newcomers played. They stepped up to the plate and that is exciting in us going forward,” said Janse van Rensburg.
Tuks scored a massive 133 points in their three pools games while only conceding one try. In the quarterfinals, they beat Georgia 42-0. The score in the semi-final game against Sweden’s Jesters was 35-0 which means in the whole tournament Tuks only conceded four tries, three of which was in the final.
Nadine Roos who played for South Africa during the Commonwealth Games scored 12 tries while Janse van Rensburg scored nine and succeeded with 32 nine conversions. She is proud of the fact that during the last three games she did not miss one conversion.
This week the Delta Drone TuksWomensRugby7’s will be competing in the Centrales Sevens Tournament in Paris.
It is going to be a real test for the abilities of the Tuks players as the national teams of Wales, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Ukraine, Georgia are playing as well as in some of the top club teams of the Netherlands and Australia. Tuks finished 6th last year.
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