Losing 00-38 in the HSBC Sydney Sevens' final to New Zealand was a disappointing end to the tournament in which South Africa won five consecutive games, including beating the All Blacks Sevens in pool play on Saturday and a good win over Fiji in the semi-finals, but Blitzboks' head coach Sandile Ngcobo said they expected more in the final on Sunday.
“We lost the physical battle and that reflects on our attitude in the final. We were not where we needed to be and we were simply not good enough in the final to win,” was his frank review.
“Yes, we had a bad patch with injuries to Siviwe Soyizwapi (day one) and Ryan Oosthuizen (day two), and then Jaiden Baron and Impi Visser (day three), which may have caught up with us in the final, but that is no excuse.
“We did not do ourselves justice in the final. But I have to give credit to the team, who came into Sunday with a great attitude and a wonderful performance against Fiji.”
Ngcobo said the growth of the squad this month shows a positive and upward curve: “If I look where we were when we started at the beginning of the year, how we improved from last week in Hamilton and how we played here, that was massive and those are the things coaches are looking for.
“We also had players coming back from injury and to see them perform well was another bonus for us. From that perspective, the second place on the HSBC log is almost a bonus. We are still growing as a group and we will be looking to improve even more going into the next tournament in Los Angeles next month.”
