South Africa’s ended day one of the Cape Town Sevens unbeaten and will now face Olympic champions France in the semi-finals on Sunday.
The Blitzboks are defending the title they won last year but had a lot of pressure on them after finishing fifth in Dubai last weekend. They stepped up on Saturday with two marquee wins and a big finale to give their home crowd something to cheer about.
Their first came from a Shilton van Wyk hat-trick to rally the team from behind to down Fiji 24-21 after the final whistle. A break from Ronald Brown to hand the ball to Van Wyk gave them the victory.
Then the team was exceptional against Dubai champions New Zealand, beating them 19-14 but with the scoreline looking a lot more respectable for the Kiwis after a late try took them into double figures.
Then in their final game against Great Britain, the Blitzboks turned it on, winning 41-7 as they ran in seven tries to one.
Donavan Don got a brace, and Ricardo Duartee, Impi Visser, Dawid Brits and Christie Grobbelaar were on the scoresheet, while Sonwabo Sokoyi scored a try on debut for the Blitzboks.
This means they will face France in the semi-final at 12.22pm with Argentina taking on Fiji shortly afterwards in the other semi-final.
Ironically last weekend’s finalists, Australia and New Zealand, missed out on the semi-finals. They will face each other in the 5th place semi-final at 10.44 with Great Britain and Spain fighting it out after that game in the other 5th place semi-final.
