The Springbok Sevens team will have to beat Samoa with a convincing score in Toulouse at 12h22 today if they want to proceed to the Cup quarter-finals of the HSBC France Sevens, and keep their lead in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series for the 2022 season.
The Blitzboks might have to do so without playmaker Dewald Human though, who will have to be declared fit from a head injury assessment before he can play against Samoa on Saturday at Stade Ernst-Wallon.
Blitzboks coach, Neil Powell, admitted they have placed themselves in this predicament on the opening day – with defeat against Ireland (22-12) before beating Spain 27-7 to get back into Pool D contention – and they will have to turn it around themselves on Saturday.
Earlier, Samoa beat Spain and Ireland to top the pool with one match left.
“It can easily come down to points’ difference tomorrow, so we have no option but to beat Samoa,” said Powell explained.
“We made it hard for ourselves against Ireland, where we just made too many errors, to be honest. We conceded a silly yellow card, we allowed ourselves to be forced into touch and we knocked on passes.
“That was just not good enough. It was not the ideal start. We had too many soft moments and did not hang on to our ball and they made us pay.”
The Blitzboks scored first when Mfundo Ndhlovu dotted down before Ireland scored just before the break to tie the scores at 7-7 at half-time.
The Irish scored soon after the restart as well, but Siviwe Soyizwapi pulled one back to cut the lead to two points again. Ireland responded with two more tries without reply to beat the Blitzboks for the first time in the World Series.
“We played much better against Spain,” added Powell. “We managed to build up nice momentum and that resulted in a good win for us. It still was not perfect, at least it got us back on track.”
Tries by Zain Davids at the beginning and end of the first half helped South Africa into a 10-7 lead, with Spain in the lead for five minutes of the half thanks to a converted try.
The second half saw a much better effort from the Blitzboks with Soyizwapi and Ronald Brown scoring before Dalvon Blood, who made his Springbok Sevens debut in Toulouse, dotting down for his first five-pointer in the Blitzbok jersey.
After the first day, Samoa top Pool D with two wins, while South Africa has a +11 points difference and Ireland a -4 difference.
If Spain beat Ireland, South Africa will still have to beat Samoa, but the points difference will not be important. If Ireland wins, the Springbok Sevens will know exactly by how much they need to beat Samoa by to make it into the top eight.