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PREVIEW: Blitzboks looking to break eight-year drought

rugby07 December 2023 11:10| © SuperSport
By:Brenden Nel
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The Springbok Sevens will be looking for two things when they head into their home tournament in the new HSBC SVNS series in Cape Town this weekend - breaking the eight-year drought on home soil and some consistency to propel them forward in the series.

The victory in Dubai - their fifth consecutive one shows just what can be achieved when the side work together to defy the odds, and there are few sides who had a tougher road than they had in Dubai last week, downing New Zealand, Fiji, Australia and Argentina on route to the title.

But that was last week and all it has done is heighten the expectation for the home leg of the series, where the Springbok Sevens have struggled in the past with the expectation placed upon them by a partisan home crowd.

There are few better experiences on the SVNS circuit than the Cape Town leg and the addition of a new playing surface, which will undergo its first rugby test this weekend, will only make it faster and hopefully lay a platform for some amazing Sevens action.

And yet, while they will enter the tournament as favourites, the circuit has shown over the years that teams winning back to back tournaments is extremely rare.

So why does the fact they are playing in front of their home crowd become such a crutch for the Blitzboks, especially as they perform in the far-flung corners of the world and have become one of the best teams on the circuit?

Perhaps because while they operate under the radar the entire year, they are thrust into the spotlight in Cape Town and everybody wants a piece of them.

But, as they will tell you themselves, that simply comes with the territory.

And while the pressure is higher in a home game, there is no reason why they can’t put together consistent performances in Cape Town as they do in other tournaments.

The six-game, two-day tournament means that teams have to be focused from moment one, and while you can surprise some in the opening tournament, the level of analysis would have worked most of that out by tournament two.

The Blitzboks will have the crowds behind them - the two day attendance is set to top 100 000 and the compact tournament is a sobering return to some good action after the farce of last year’s Sevens World Cup.

In the end though, the Blitzboks need to focus on every game as one slip up would continue the drought.

And consistency is the first start to that.

After impressing in their first two games against New Zealand and Fiji, the Women Blitzboks disappointed with a 10th place finish and have been hit by injuries.

For them the weekend will be proving that last week’s performances weren’t one-hit wonders and if they are to make the breakthrough, Cape Town is the place to do it.

SA teams’ pool opponents on Saturday, 9 December:

Women

09h44: France

11h56: Canada

16h38: USA

Men

10h50: Great Britain

14h12: USA

19h34: Ireland

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