The Springbok Women’s Sevens – with a magnificent Nadine Roos leading the charge – broke their 2022 Rugby World Cup Sevens duck in emphatic fashion when they outplayed Colombia by 27-0 to book their place in the Challenge 13th place playoff against China, at 2:37pm on Sunday afternoon.
Roos, who scored a try in their heart-breaking defeat by 14-12 to Japan earlier on Saturday, crossed for four of South Africa’s five tries in one of the best individual performances of the tournament so far.
But Roos didn’t operate on her own and was helped by a great team effort, with defensive pressure often forcing the Colombians into mistakes on which the South Africans capitalised to make the scoreboard tick over.
Co-captain Sizophila Solontsi was a relieved woman after the game and said the victory felt amazing: “We are happy as a team with this game and it shows how great we can be if we just implement the game plan and everything the coaches are telling us to do.
“Kudos to our coaches for allowing us to feel what we were feeling after the Japan loss, and to then pick ourselves up as a team. So, what we did was stick together, talk about it, talk about what went wrong and how we could fix that and focus more on what we can do great.”
Solontsi also praised Roos for her part in the victory: “It’s always great to have a player like Nadine in the team. She brings that intensity every game and today she brought everything, that was it. That's what we've got in the team if we just focus on what we do best.”
Roos said the hurt from losing their first two games drove them to lift their game against Colombia.
“I think it was a massive performance from the team, bouncing back from our losses against France and Japan – it hurt so much because we knew we had that game,” said Roos.
“It took massive regrouping from the team and coming back today to give this performance for this crowd, for the younger, little kids getting to watch this kind of performance.
“There are a lot of women’s teams who have performed really well and showcased the talent, and show the ladies that what is [going on] out here, is something they can chase after.”
The first half against Colombia was quite an arm wrestle, with no inch given on attack by either team, but the deadlock was finally broken after five minutes when Roos won a penalty on the ground, took the quick tap, raced away and beat the Colombian defence to score under the posts. Eloise Webb converted to hand South Africa a 7-0.
It looked like that was going to be the score at the break, but after the hooter – from their own half after a downfield kick by the Colombians – Roos started a great counter-attack and after some sublime interplay with Ayanda Malinga, the blonde speedster raced away for her second try to make the halftime score 12-0 to South Africa.
Roos was at it again less than two minutes into the second half, when the host nation won a turnover in their opponents’ 22 and the ball was shifted wide to the speedster to go over in the corner – the third hat-trick of tries by a Springbok Women’s Sevens player in Rugby World Cup Sevens history.
Moments later she made it four, again from a turnover, with Roos showing great pace to go over in the other corner. At 22-0 with three minutes to go, it was South Africa’s game to lose. With this five-pointer, she became only the fourth women to score four tries in a RWC 7s match.
Mathrin Simmers then got in on the action, with the South Africans turning defensive pressure into a turnover for the co-captain to go over for their fifth try, just before Roos left the field to great applause from the appreciative crowd as the Springbok Women’s Sevens got their first win of the tournament in categorical fashion.
