Certain things used to be a given for the Blitzboks, such as laying the foundation in the first match of a World Sevens Series tournament, and coach Neil Powell is hoping for a return to these staples in London on Saturday.
Powell’s men have suffered a number of unexpected defeats in recent tournaments and they are in a much tighter race to retain the series crown than was anticipated two months ago.
SA and Argentina are neck and neck in the race to the finish line, so Saturday’s clash between the two teams is more important than just a strong start to the weekend.
The Blitzboks’ processes and systems haven’t changed, despite their disappointing results of late, and when the South Africans take on Argentina at 10:54am, the focus would be exactly the same.
Powell has been quite open about the shortfalls in his team’s game last weekend in Toulouse. “Soft moments and basic skills not executed well, rather than lack of effort was holding us back,” he said.
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“We had some areas that were really poor in Toulouse. Our kick-off receives was one of them and we lost three of the four restarts against Samoa, for example. That is giving the ball straight back to the opponents and at this level it is looking for trouble, especially when you do so in critical times of the game.
“Those are small areas in the game that we need to improve on, but also areas that we know we can improve on. We worked on those, and the results will be better this weekend. They are a difficult team to play against – they never surrender and they never give up,” the coach added.
“I believe that if we put down a good foundation in that first game, the guys will build on it and we will be successful. It is going to take a big effort, individually and as a team, to do that and deliver a more clinical performance than we showed last weekend.”
Blitzboks’ Saturday schedule:
10:54am, v Argentina
2:22pm, v Ireland
5:08pm, v Kenya
