OPINION: Was Hong Kong showing just a blip for the Blitzboks?

A dismal showing from the Blitzboks at the Hong Kong Sevens over the weekend sparked fears that the team were returning to their dreadfully inconsistent ways, but could it just be a blip at a tournament at which they have never done well?

Since picking up the bronze medal at the Paris Olympics last year, it seemed like the Blitzboks had turned the corner after a frustrating few years when they had consistently underperformed, which had led to them almost not even qualifying for the Games.

In this season’s Sevens Series, the Blitzboks have been relatively solid, as they finished sixth in Dubai, before winning the Cape Town leg, and followed that up with a fourth-place finish in Perth and a runner-up finish in Vancouver.

That kept them in the mix near the top of the series league table heading into the Hong Kong event, only for them to produce their worst effort of the season as they didn’t qualify for the quarterfinals for the first time and ended up finishing ninth.

Strong start

They started the event well enough, thumping Uruguay 40-7, but followed that up with pool losses against Australia (26-7) and New Zealand (17-7), to drop them into a bottom half scrap.

A 33-7 win over Uruguay, and a last gasp 19-17 win over Kenya ensured that the Blitzboks finished as high as they could, but it was still a bitterly disappointing performance.

It was, however, basically par for the course for the Blitzboks on the South China Island, as they have never done well in Hong Kong, with their best ever showings a runner-up finish at the World Cup in 1997, and runner-up finishes in the series in 2008, 2009 and 2017.

Despite the result, the Blitzboks are still fourth overall in the series standings, but it has ended their hopes of winning the league, as they are unable to catch table toppers Argentina.

No matter what happens in Singapore in the final event of the series this weekend, they will finish in the top eight, which means they will move on to the winner-takes-all World Championship event in Los Angeles in early May, where they will have the chance to claim the Sevens champions crown.