Unbeaten Blitzboks set up Samoa showdown

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The Blitzboks will face old rivals Samoa in the Cup quarter-finals of the Canada Sevens after a clean sweep of Pool C at BC Place on Saturday.

South Africa made a strong start to their defence of the Vancouver title by beating Spain, Canada and Australia to top the pool and book a playoff against Samoa at 8.02pm on Sunday.

Coming off three consecutive defeats in Singapore last week, the Blitzboks took a couple of minutes to get into their stride in the sixth tournament of the World Sevens Series and even conceded an early try to a competitive Spanish outfit.

The reigning champs eventually stretched their legs for a 31-12 win against Spain, then conceded two quick tries against Canada in a 19-14 win and produced a late try against Australia to seal a deserved 22-19 win.

Spain, who scored a famous win over the All Blacks Sevens at the same venue three seasons ago, proved a handful, but also the ideal opponent to get the South Africans back to winning ways.

The Blitzboks kept their winning streak going in the second match against Canada, going 12-0 up at the break and in control as the host union made a number of errors in first phase play.

SA played a controlled game and after a couple of intrusive plays on attack, JC Pretorius was worked into space for a 5-0 lead. Ronald Brown scored a well-worked try just before the break and converted for a 12-0 lead.

Canada shocked the Blitzboks in the early exchanges of the second half, scoring two converted tries within a minute to take an unexpected 14-12 lead.

Despite missing Ryan Oosthuizen (calf) and Darren Adonis (ankle), the Blitzboks kept their cool and Selvyn Davids scored under the sticks to restore the lead. The SA defence then countered a last Canada attack to secure the win.

The final pool match against Australia developed into a real humdinger, with both sides scoring a number of long-range tries.

South Africa were on the board in the opening play, with Brown going over in the corner for a 5-0 lead. That was short-lived, though, as Ben Marr scored a converted try to hand the lead back to Australia. Brown got a second soon after Zain Davids ran strongly, but again the Aussies struck back almost immediately with a try that started close to their own tryline. This time, Matthew Gonzalez, scored and with the conversion, they had a 14-10 lead at the break.

The men from Down Under also got the next score, with Nick Malouf dotting down for a 19-10 lead early in the second half. Davids pulled once back with a strong barge and the conversion by Shaun Williams cut the deficit to two.

That was wiped out one minute from time with Pretorius scoring after a good offload by Siviwe Soyizwapi, and SA held out for a well-deserved win.

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Devin Hermanus