South Africa will end the league phase of the HSBC SVNS season in fourth place after a strong finish in Singapore on Sunday, where they won both their games but were unfortunately still placed ninth, and Springbok Sevens team head coach Philip Snyman bemoaned the lack of consistency.
Argentina won the league despite a defeat against the Blitzboks in their pool match on Saturday, with the top eight teams now setting their sights on the Grand Finale in Los Angeles early next month.
Ultimately, the Blitzboks won three of their four matches in Singapore, showing great character to win both their matches on Sunday, 14-12 against the USA and 26-7 over Australia, with only nine available players, but a big defeat in their pool opener against Great Britain meant they were consigned to the minor placings.
Snyman said the weekend was “bittersweet” and that the performances left him with mixed emotions, but that overall, he was happy with the way in which the players stood up and fought in their last three games.
“That first game against GB really put us on the backfoot, first with the early red card and then playing with only five players later on after a yellow card,” said Snyman.
“We need to address our discipline as it wasn’t up to standard with too many cards and too many penalties.
“After that game, we decided we’re going to judge ourselves on our last three matches. We put up a massive fight against Argentina, the world’s number one team, and this morning, despite beating the USA, we were not at our best and not clinical, which is probably the story of our season – too up and down and not consistent enough.
“Then we delivered one of our best and most clinical performances against Australia, so while I have some mixed emotions, I’m very happy with the way in which we finished the tournament.”
Snyman said the lack of consistency is frustrating: “I believe in this squad and the programme, but we need to be more consistent, which is why we’re not amongst the top three. We still made a massive step up from last season though.
“We have beaten Argentina twice and we played in two finals, but on the Asian leg in the last two weeks we came up short, which we need to address.
“We are going to continue to work very hard and make a mental shift to see how we can me more clinical and consistent, because this team have shown they can beat any other team.”
Snyman said the Blitzboks have made progress this season although they have set higher goals for themselves.
“Coming into this tournament, we wanted to play according to our standards, and we did that in the last couple of games, so we’re happy with that, but we’re still too inconsistent to be regarded as one of the good teams,” he said.
“If we can’t get that right, we’ll struggle to be amongst the best, and that is one of our goals. At the start of the season, we said we wanted to be amongst the top teams while also blooding new players with the 2028 Olympic Games in mind.
“I think we did that, with someone like Zander Reynders making his debut and making massive steps up every tournament, growing as a player and a leader, while Gino Cupido came through too. We are heading in the right direction, but we need to be more consistent.”