Cape Town - Seabelo Senatla could easily have been the favourite to start at left wing for the Springboks in the opening Test against Ireland on June 11.
Instead, he is not even playing Super Rugby for the Stormers, and has decided to sacrifice his 15-man ambitions to serve the Springbok Sevens side for the Rio Olympic Games in August.
Senatla has perhaps sacrificed too much already as he could even have made the Bok squad for last year’s Rugby World Cup had he had not played in the shorter format. He was called up to the Bok squad for the end-of-year tour to Europe in 2014, and spent two weeks in the group without getting on to the field.
He was released from the squad ahead of the final Test against Wales to rejoin the Blitzboks.
The 23-year-old flyer from Welkom, though, hasn’t shifted his mind to Rio de Janeiro yet, despite the Olympics being less than three months away.
Even though the Blitzboks are second on the World Series log to Fiji, Senatla is the leading try-scorer for the season with 54, an astonishing 15 more than the second-placed American Perry Baker on 39.
That also places Senatla in third place on the points-scorers’ list on 270, one behind USA’s Madison Hughes and 18 off Canada’s Nathan Hirayama.
Senatla will be one of the key figures for Neil Powell’s team as they chase the gold medal in Brazil, but they first have to try and win the World Series, where they trail Fiji by eight points with two tournaments to go.
“With us, it’s all about what comes first, and for us now, it’s Paris and London. The Olympics is at the back of our minds, but our sole focus is on the upcoming tournaments. So it’s like the Olympics is in a bigger box, and Paris and London is on a smaller scale within that bigger box,” Senatla said before departing for France.
“That’s what we need to get through first to get to the bigger box, to get that (Olympic) box open. The Olympics will sort itself out later.”
The fact that Powell has mixed and matched the squad during the World Series this season, which saw 15s stars such as Juan de Jongh, Francois Hougaard and Cheslin Kolbe feature in the first four tournaments, will ensure that they remain in good physical shape ahead of the Olympics.
Senatla believes that the rotation policy will aid their cause in the Paris Sevens this weekend. “What the management has done well this year is to keep the guys fresh. The guys are looking sharper and hungrier when going into tournaments now. That’s been the recipe for us, as normally you see the guys starting to fall off after the fourth or fifth tournament and they get tired,” he said.
“But for now, you don’t see any signs of that, and that has been working well for us. We’ve never felt that way so late in the season.”
The Blitzboks arrived in the French capital on Monday, and have drawn England, Brazil and Australia in Pool C. They open their account against the English on Friday (8.28pm) at the Stade Jean Bouin, before facing Brazil (11.58am) and Australia (3.31pm) on Saturday, with the playoffs on Sunday.
“It is a difficult two weeks coming up,” said Powell. “It is the last two tournaments of a long season and in the past we did not perform to expectation or potential in those. Then the focus will shift to the Olympic Games just after that, so you want to finish the series with good performances.”
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