JOHANNESBURG - The fairy tale run had to come to an end at some stage. After winning the last three tournaments the SA Sevens team lost to England in the final in Vancouver this morning (SA time).
Neil Powell’s men went down 19-7 to England, but it was still the team’s sixth straight final in the World Rugby Sevens Series, and after previously winning the tournaments in Dubai, Sydney, Wellington, Las Vegas. They also played in the final in their home tournament in Cape Town.
The BlitzBoks, however, still hold a healthy lead atop the series standings, with four tournaments to go. They’re 23 points ahead of second placed England, with Fiji third, 26 points behind.
South Africa’s feats are the more remarkable when one considers they have played in six finals without their full strength team on a number of occasions. Not only have Seabelo Senatla and Kwagga Smith been missing recently, but this weekend they also lost Justin Geduld and Stephan Dippenaar before the tournament and then Branco du Preez and Rosco Speckman during the tournament.
After winning against Chile and Kenya and drawing to England in pool play, the BlitzBoks beat Canada in the quarter-finals (36-7) and the USA in the semi-finals, 14-10.
While Powell was pleased with the team’s efforts in back-to-back tournaments in North America, he was worried about the high injury toll on his players.
“If anyone offered me that before the trip, I would have taken it,” Powell said. “From that perspective, it was a very good trip for us.
“However, we have a short turn-around and in two and a half weeks we will be on our way to Hong Kong again. We still need to do medicals, but it seems that we will lose a number of players and might need to travel to Hong Kong with a much younger squad. We have some hard work ahead of us.”
The coach was not impressed with the team's effort in Vancouver though.
"Today we did not play well though. We started well against Canada, but that was our only proper performance. To be honest with ourselves, we were not clinical enough on attack and did not keep the ball long enough before being turned over again,” Powell said.
“We used one of our opportunities, but all three times we surrendered possession unnecessarily, England scored. You cannot win finals playing like that and you cannot expect to beat a good team like England playing like that."
England are the only side to have beaten the Blitzboks this year, beating them in Cape Town, Wellington and now in Vancouver. The teams also played to a draw in pool play on Sunday.
"It does seem that we have a problem against England. We will have to go and look how and where to do things better when we face them," Powell admitted.