South Africa’s men’s sevens team beat Uruguay and Kenya on Sunday to finish ninth at the Hong Kong Sevens. South Africa had failed to make the quarter-finals of the World Rugby Sevens Series tournament after losing their last pool match on Saturday 17-7 to New Zealand.
That was South Africa’s second loss in as many games after falling 26-7 to Australia in Pool B. While their campaign started with a scintillating 40-7 demolition of relegation-threatened Uruguay, they hadn’t done enough to qualify for the Cup quarters.
The South Africans scored five tries in their 33-7 ninth-place semi-final win against Uruguay. Gino Cupido grabbed two, with Impi Visser, Shilton van Wyk and Dewald Human also crossing the line.
In the ninth-place final against Kenya, tries from Van Wyk and Cupido gave the South Africans 12-0 lead after three minutes, but a double from Nygel Pettersan Amaitsa saw Kenya draw level early in the second half.
South Africa were reduced to six men when Ryan Oosthuizen was yellow-carded and conceded a third try just before he was set to return to the field. The Kenyans pushed South Africa off their own scrum ball and Patrick Odongo Okong dotted down to make it 17-12.
But South Africa hit back when Siviwe Soyizwapi scored with just over a minute remaining and Dewald Human slotted the conversion for a 19-17 winning lead.
