‘Story of our season … too up and down,’ says coach as Blitzboks finish fourth in standings

South Africa’s Blitzboks have had to settle for a fourth place finish in the World Sevens Series after a second straight poor showing at a tournament, this time in Singapore.

The SA Sevens team ended the series with back-to-back ninth place finishes, first in Hong Kong last weekend and then in Singapore this weekend.

Philip Snyman’s changes managed to pick up only four log points in each of those tournaments, leaving them on 70 points in total.

In first place were Argentina 104 points, after three tournament wins, in second were Fiji with 96 points (two tournament wins), while Spain took third with 88 log points. France were fifth, Australia sixth, New Zealand seventh and Great Britain eight.

The top eight teams will now advance to the Grand Finale in Los Angeles next month.

Snyman’s team again lacked in consistency in Singapore. The Blitzboks won three of their four matches in the tournament, including a 14-12 win against the USA and a 26-7 win against Australia on Sunday, but their big defeat to Great Britain (38-10) in their opening game on Saturday cost them dearly. They also beat eventual league winners, Argentina on Saturday (26-24).

‘Put us on back foot’

“That first game against GB really put us on the back foot, 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 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 among 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.”