Springbok Women's Sevens interim coach Renfred Dazel lamented the close 17-14 defeat to Spain in their final Pool A game at the HSBC Cape Town Sevens on Saturday but praised the squad for the continued improvement they made as the tournament progressed.
The result means that the Springbok Women's Sevens will play for ninth place at their home event and incidentally, will meet Spain again on Sunday (at 08h22). In the other semi-final in that bracket, Japan and Brazil will clash at 08h00.
“We were much better today in turning pressure into points,” said Dazel.
“Yesterday, against Australia and Ireland, we managed to put them under pressure, but then allowed them to escape without us putting points on the board. Today, that was not the case and that was a huge boost for our confidence and justified the effort the players put in.”
“Rights Mkhari really played well for us today, but she was not the only one,” said Dazel.
“We made a number of very good decisions and to be leading a core team for most of the match is testimony about the effort out there today.
“In the second half, we did make some mistakes, but that was rather a matter of combinations not quite knowing each other that well. We also played a lot of rugby over the last two weeks and the bodies were tired at the end.”
Dazel is confident that their match against Spain on Sunday will be an even better effort: “The bodies will be sore, but what we saw this afternoon made me very excited about tomorrow. That performance did put some pride back in the jersey.
“One cannot ask for more, a team playing for the badge and leaving nothing on the field. Add some finishing touches like we did against Spain today and we are definitely going in the right direction,” he added.
