Five seconds. That’s all that stood between the Springbok Sevens and a place in the Cup final of the Las Vegas tournament late on Sunday night…
But it was not to be as Neil Powell’s team went down 14-12 to Australia in the semi-final, which saw them having to contest the third-place playoff against USA after the hosts lost 21-14 to Fiji in their semi-final.
Roscko Speckman had done brilliantly to win the Blitzboks’ kickoff with 11 seconds left on the clock after captain Kyle Brown scored what appeared to be the winning try under the posts, which was converted by Branco du Preez.
The South Africans were leading 12-7, and actually managed to win the ball back at the kickoff through Speckman. There were seven seconds left when scrumhalf Du Preez got the ball, and he fed Chris Dry to his right, who caught the ball with five seconds to go.
All Dry had to go was either retain possession for five seconds before he could the ball out, and the Blitzboks would win, or pass to a teammate to do that.
Instead, Dry looked right and passed the ball beyond Kwagga Smith, who was closest to him, as he tried to find Brown close to the touchline.
But Dry flung the ball over Brown’s head and into touch, and with two seconds to go, Australia were awarded a lineout on their own 10-metre line.
The final hooter went off before the lineout began, but that didn’t bother the Aussies. They won their lineout ball easily, and Allan Fa’alava’au burst through the tackle of Brown to surge into the South African half, but then Du Preez caught him high and Argentine referee Federico Anselmi gave the Aussies a penalty on the SA 10m line.
Greg Jeloudev changed direction cleverly as he came back to the left touchline and drew two defenders in Brown and Smith. The ball squirted out as Brown tried to get a turnover, but suddenly Fa’alava’au was clear in space.
He sidestepped Dry easily, rode the tackle from Justin Geduld and offloaded superbly to a flying Australian captain Ed Jenkins.
That pass unlocked the Blitzboks, and Jenkins was on his way to dot down when Speckman came across in cover defence and dragged Jenkins down by grabbing him around the neck about six metres from the line with no other South African defender in sight.
Referee Anselmi immediately blew his whistle and awarded a penalty try, and gave Speckman a second yellow card, which turned into a red.
The first came earlier when Speckman was again the guilty party in trying to prevent another Australian try as he pushed Cooper into touch at the corner flag without using his arms.
The second penalty try took the score to 12-12, and Cooper slotted the easy conversion from right in front to send the Aussies to a Cup final against Fiji.
The Blitzboks – who had Bryan Habana in the starting line-up for the first time in Las Vegas – had a tight approach from the start, with no score in the first five minutes.
But then Seabelo Senatla recorded his 10th try of the weekend when Speckman took a quick tap penalty and saw space on the left near his own 22, and fed Geduld, who put Senatla away on the outside and he ran over 60 metres to open the scoring.
With just two minutes left, Speckman’s foul on Cooper saw Australia go ahead 7-5, but a few seconds later, it was former Wallaby flyhalf Cooper who was the villain as his high tackle on Senatla saw him yellow-carded on the Aussie 22.
From the tap penalty, the Blitzboks worked their way over the line through Brown, and then came the late drama involving Speckman and the second penalty try…
The South Africans had the consolation of outlasting USA 21-10 to end third in the tournament – with Senatla grabbing a tournament-high 11th try – which gives them 17 log points in the World Sevens Series and second spot on 86 points.
Fiji defended their Las Vegas Sevens Cup title successfully by coming back from 15-0 down at halftime to pull through 21-15 against Australia.
The victory puts Fiji on 91, five ahead of South Africa, ahead of next weekend’s event in Vancouver, Canada.
@IndyCapeSport
Points-Scorers: SA v USA (Third-place playoff)
South Africa – Tries: Tim Agaba, Seabelo Senatla, Branco du Preez. Conversions: Du Preez (3).
USA – Tries: Perry Baker, Carlin Isles.
Points-Scorers: SA v Australia (Cup semi-final)
South Africa – Tries: Seabelo Senatla, Kyle Brown. Conversion: Branco du Preez (1).
Australia – Tries: Penalty Try (2). Conversions: Quade Cooper (2).
Points-Scorers: Fiji v Australia (Cup final)
Fiji – Tries: Kitione Taliga (2), Savenaca Rawaca. Conversions: Vatemo Ravouvou (3).
Australia – Tries: Sam Myers, Ed Jenkins, Cam Clark.
World Sevens Series Top 4
Fiji 91, South Africa 86, New Zealand 82, Australia 73