Blitzboks into the semifinals in Vancouver

The Springbok Sevens secured another semifinal in the HSBC SVNS series by claiming top honours of Pool A at the Vancouver, Canada, leg at BC Place on Day One of the tournament.

They will face Australia on Sunday (10.33pm SA time) in the first semifinal of the Vancouver Sevens, while Fiji and Spain will contest the second.

On Saturday (early hours of Sunday morning in South Africa) the Blitzboks outplayed Great Britain (21-5), Spain (28-7) and New Zealand (17-12) to finish top of their pool. They contested semifinals in Cape Town, Singapore and Perth in the previous three events, winning the tournaments at home and in Australia last month.

Strong defence laid the foundation for the success of the first day. They missed very few one-on-one tackles, kept their discipline and outworked their opponents.

South Africa were marginally slow out of the blocks in their first match against Great Britain, though, as they conceded a couple of penalties at the breakdown. Once Ronald Brown made a break to score the opening try, though, more fluency on attack followed. Brown’s opener was the only points in the first half.

Team GB scored first in the second half, but the South African side upped the tempo, with several bench players making an impact, such as Ryan Oosthuizen, who, with Shilton van Wyk, scored the second-half tries.

Against Spain, it was again a matter of patience. The Spaniards were full of running after a confidence-boosting win over New Zealand in their first game. Brown again opened the scoring as he darted around the blind side from a scrum in the only points of an evenly contested first half.

The second half belonged to South Africa as they tested and overcame the Spanish defence. Sebastiaan Jobb raced in from 70m after a great break, and soon after Van Wyk dotted down after another good attacking spell. Tristan Leyds dotted down for the fourth try and converted before Spain scored in the last play of the match.

A great start against New Zealand sealed the deal for the Blitzboks. Impi Visser scored after an impressive long-range effort by the skipper, and Van Wyk followed soon after to extend the lead. A third try by Siviwe Soyizwapi late in the first half pushed the lead out to 17 points.

New Zealand, having to win the match to stay in the tournament, rallied well in the second half, scoring twice, but some good turnovers by Selvyn Davids and Dewald Human eased the pressure, and the Blitzboks could finish the day unbeaten.

Scoring summaries

• South Africa 21 (7) - Tries: Ronald Brown, Shilton van Wyk, Ryan Oosthuizen. Conversions: Brown, Dewald Human (2).
• Great Britain 5 (0) - Try: Finley Lloyd-Gilmour.

• South Africa 28 (7) - Tries: Ronald Brown, Sebastiaan Jobb, Shilton van Wyk, Tristan Leyds. Conversions: Brown (3), Leyds.
• Spain 7 (0) - Try: Jeremy Trevithick. Conversion: Roberto Ponce.

• South Africa 17 (17) - Tries: Impi Visser, Shilton van Wyk, Siviwe Soyizwapi. Conversion: Ronald Brown.
• New Zealand 12 (0) - Tries: Rob Rush, Frank Vaenuku. Conversion: Akuila Rokolisoa.

SA Rugby communications