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Blitzboks go for gold again

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Mfundo Ndlovu is one of the youngsters expected to carry the hopes of the SA Ruby Sevens team this season. Picture: Lee Warren / Gallo Images
Mfundo Ndlovu is one of the youngsters expected to carry the hopes of the SA Ruby Sevens team this season. Picture: Lee Warren / Gallo Images

Depending on how one looks at it, the Blitzboks’ World Rugby Sevens Series win this year was either a case of taking the low road to Sevens heaven or a triumph of consistency over dominance.

That two-point series win over Fiji – the closest in history after the islanders had won five events to the Blitzboks’ two – was as different as you could find from the dominant victory of the year before, when Neil Powell’s men topped pretty much every statistic.

So, what should we expect when Powell and his charges embark on their defence in Dubai on Friday? Six of the regulars – Seabelo Senatla, Tim Agaba, Rosko Specman, Dylan Sage, Kwagga Smith and Ruhan Nel –have defected to 15s rugby and playmakers Cecil Afrika and Stedman Gans are injured.

“It’s almost a new start for us,” said Powell from Stellenbosch ahead of naming the men’s, women’s and academy sides this week. “We can’t look back at the past two years and compare them. It’s a new book for us; we have to write our own stories.”

Where last season’s focus was split by the Blitzboks trying to defend their Commonwealth Games title, the World Rugby Sevens Series title and having another tilt in vain at the Sevens World Cup, the centre of attention going into this campaign is Vision 2020.

The 2016 Olympic bronze medallists have set qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics as their main goal this time around.

“We’re going to have a different challenge this year because it’s Olympic qualifying year. We want to be in the top-four finishers, which qualifies you for the Olympics – but if you finish in the top four it also means you can win,” said Powell.

Powell’s nose wasn’t as out of joint as one would expect from having the 15-a-side teams poach his best talent – his philosophical explanation being something along the lines of for the greater good: “It means we’ve done our job; everything we do is to better South African rugby, whether that is the Sevens or the 15s.

“Guys like Ruhan have won a lot in Sevens, but he’s got a childhood dream to play for the Boks at the World Cup; it’s a culture in which we’ve been brought up. But the message that goes out to youngsters is that you don’t have to go to 15s academies to make the Bok team, you can also go to the Sevens academy.”

Powell said their succession planning was such that they were ready for the departures and injuries: “I think we’re happy with how we’ve managed the process of developing sevens national players in the past two years. When we took a development team to Hong Kong last year, when we were still in contention, people asked what we were doing. We knew we had to develop players to replace the ones leaving or retiring soon. We’re happy that, in the past three years, we focused not only on winning, but also on developing guys.”

Asked why the Blitzboks had gone from being a side in which talented players – deemed too small for 15-a-side rugby – saw out their careers to now being a finishing school for the 15s, Powell was loath to take too much credit.

“If we talk about it, it’s almost like we’re praising ourselves for what we’re doing. What we have is the luxury of time to focus on working on a player’s weaknesses, to work on aerial skills, defence and decision making. In the 15s, it’s difficult to focus on those things because you’re playing week in and week out.”

With Afrika (detached hamstring), Gans (ankle) and Heino Bezuidenhout (fractured finger) expected back only when the Blitzboks reconvene on January 3, Powell said there were some players whose performances he was looking forward to in the first two events (in Dubai and Cape Town) of the series.

“There are a few guys who will stake their claim in the World Series this year; talented players such as Impi Visser, JC Pretorius and Mfundo Ndlovu will surprise everyone this season. We’re looking to give them exposure, and we’re confident they’ll take nicely to the World Series.”

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