A hat-trick of tries - including one after the final whistle - from speedster Shilton van Wyk gave South Africa a heart-stopping 24-21 win over Fiji in their opening game of the Cape Town Sevens.
The Blitzboks, who won in Cape Town last year, made lives hard for themselves with some poor defence during the game that led to soft tries for Fiji, but fought back hard to take the game at the end.
Considering Fiji beat them easily in Dubai last weekend, the win was satisfying, even though the team has a lot of hard work ahead of them if they are to defend their title this weekend.
Van Wyk’s efforts were all the result of some really hard work on attack by the side, who refused to lie down even though Fiji unlocked their defence more than once.
The Blitzboks started off poorly, as Christi Grobbelaar missed a one-on-one tackle that allowed Fiji’s Apete Narogo to score a long range try, but then Grobbelaar started and finished a move in his own 22 to the opposition tryline to level the scores.
Viwa Naduvalo scored a very easy try, beating one tackler to run 70 metres and retake the lead before Van Wyk got the ball on the wing with no space, grubbered it forward and collected for his first try.
That left matters at 14-12 at the break and Fiji scored first in the second half to extend their lead through Joseva Talacolo.
Van Wyk got his second shortly afterwards and a key turnover in the dying minutes, and a penalty from the ensuing scrum gave them their opportunity for victory, with Ronald Brown tapping and sprinting close to the line, popping the ball inside to Van Wyk just as he was about to go into touch to score the winning try.
The Blitzboks now face New Zealand at 4pm before their final pool game against Great Britain at 7:41pm. New Zealand beat Great Britain 29-12 in their opening game.