Blitzbokke into Cape Town Cup quarters
The Springbok Sevens team scored a dramatic 10-0 win over England in their final pool B clash of the first-ever Cape Town Sevens at the Cape Town Stadium on Saturday to keep their defence of the South African leg of the Series alive.
They will meet Australia in the Cup quarter-finals at 12:26 on Sunday.
The South African Blitzboks earlier in the day suffered an unexpected 14-12 defeat to Kenya and had to beat England, last weekend's finalists in Dubai, to secure a spot in the Cup quarters.
The Kenyans proved to be a hard nut to crack, as they also drew with England in their opening pool B match. They outclassed Zimbabwe in their third pool match to top pool B.
Against England, the Blitzboks got on the scoreboard early, courtesy of Juan de Jongh, who capitalised on England having a player in the sin bin. The local hero stepped past a couple of defenders to keep the crowd, who swelled to more than 52 000 during the day, happy and coming back for more on Sunday.
The only other score in the match came in the second half when Ryno Benjamin crossed the line following some sustained pressure by his team.
Springbok Sevens coach Neil Powell was proud of the win, but admitted that it was a frustrating day.
"We are in the Cup quarters where we wanted to be, but things just did not happen for us today. We made many mistakes and very few of the things we tried, really worked. That said, we are still on track defending our title. There are no injuries in the camp, so we will give it our best on Sunday," he said.
Fiji and Australia were the only two sides to win all three of their matches, with log-leading Fijians very impressive. They scored 129 points and 21 tries and have now won their last 33 pool matches in the series.
New Zealand suffered a defeat to Canada for only the second time in history, but topped Pool D with a 19-10 win over Samoa to set up a quarter-final with Argentina.
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