Springbok Sevens head coach Philip Snyman expressed frustration and disappointment in his team’s fourth-place finish at the HSBC SVNS Singapore on Sunday.
The Blitzboks dropped both matches in the National Stadium on Sunday, losing against France in the semi-finals and then to New Zealand in the playoff for third place.
“It was certainly not our best performance in a while,” said Snyman about Sunday’s matches.
“There was no lack of effort out there, but our execution and decision making were not up to standard, and we paid the price for that”
South Africa dropped from the top of the standings to third on the log on 46 points after the weekend, where Fiji won their first tournament of the 2026 World Series to move to the top of the table (52 points), with New Zealand now in second place (48 points).
Snyman pointed to a number of areas where they did not meet their usual high standards but refused to blame the lack of experience in the squad to the overall result.
“There was a risk in bringing a couple of players with very little, if any, tournament experience under their belts, but we are working towards squad depth as well,” he said.
“I was happy with the efforts of Luan Giliomee (debut) and Nabo Sakoyo (one tournament). We anticipated that it could affect us a little, but overall, we were just not good enough.
“The plus points are that those younger players now experienced yet another tournament, and Luan, playing in his first tournament, experienced what it is to play against Fiji, France and New Zealand, for example.
“We are now heading to Perth, where we will work on those deficiencies in our execution. We have an internal scorecard on our team standards, and we will revisit that to remind ourselves what we stand for and what our standards are as the Springbok Sevens team.”
According to the Blitzbok coach, the lack of decision-making and clinical finishing were the biggest disappointments: “We created so many opportunities but hardly took any of them, and with the margins in this series, that is going to affect the final results. We were poor in both areas.”
Snyman said the lack of discipline was another area where they will need to look in the mirror.
“We conceded two yellow cards against Fiji; that is not how you beat them,” said Snyman.
“Also, we conceded possession too easily and too often, so we could not build any cohesion on attack. We want to play a very fast game in order to make our opponents tired, but to do that, you need to have the ball. We simply did not look after our possession well enough.”
The Blitzboks will face Fiji, Spain and Argentina in Pool A of the HSBC SVNS Perth at the HBF Stadium on 7 and 8 February.