South Africa’s superb form continued as they ended day one of the Cape Town Sevens unbeaten and will now face Olympic Champions France in the semifinals 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 semifinal at 12.22pm with Argentina taking on Fiji shortly afterwards in the other semifinal.
Ironically last weekend’s finalists, Australia and New Zealand, missed out on the semifinals. They will face each other in the 5th place semifinal at 10.44 with Great Britain and Spain fighting it out after that game in the other 5th place semifinal.