The SA Sevens team will be seeking a better all-round performance in Australia this weekend.
The eight men’s captains of their Sevens teams ahead of the Perth tournament this weekend. Picture: Paul Kane/Getty Images for Rugby Australia
The Blitzboks are desperate to cut out the “silly errors” that cost them a top three finish at the Singapore Sevens last weekend when they run out at the Perth event in Australia in the coming days.
While the Blitzboks started well in their pool play last weekend, with two wins, they lost their next three games to finish fourth at the tournament.
“It was a tough weekend in Singapore, so coming here [to Perth] and out to the local beach for the captains’ photo does perk you up, especially on a beautiful day such as today,” said Blitzboks captain Siviwe Soyizwapi ahead of the fourth tournament of the current season.
“We know how much potential we have as a group, so making silly errors is frustrating. We don’t mind the odd bad call that comes our way, that will happen but dropping a ball or making a bad pass or missing a tackle, those things are on us and no one else can be blamed for that.”
Opponents
The Blitzboks will again face Spain and Fiji, with Argentina their only “new” opponent in Pool A.
Where they outplayed the Spanish for a 21-14 win last weekend, they lost to Fiji in extra time after the scores were even (19-19) at the end of normal time and for Soyizwapi, it will be a matter of expecting the expected, but to execute better.
“The teams know each other by now and tactically each one will be well aware of what the others bring to the game,” he said. “We still have some things up our sleeve, but so will the other teams, so we need to be strategic and better in our execution in order to be successful.”
Some good attention to detail went into their training session on Wednesday and Soyizwapi is confident that they will come out on top.
They will have time to clear the heads on Thursday when the players have the day to themselves.
“We will have a day off and that down time will come in handy as we could go sightseeing a bit, but the mindset is pretty much on fixing what went wrong last time around. We messed up, so we need to fix that ourselves.”
Saturday pool fixtures (SA times)
Spain – 5.58am, Argentina – 9.14am, Fiji – 12.52pm
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