Blitzboks dumped out of Hong Kong Sevens by old Aussie foe

File. The Blitzboks were unceremoniously dumped out of the Hong Kong Sevens at the hands of Australia on Saturday. Seen here: Blitzboks Ryan Oosthuizen in action. Picture: Phando Jikelo/Independent Media

File. The Blitzboks were unceremoniously dumped out of the Hong Kong Sevens at the hands of Australia on Saturday. Seen here: Blitzboks Ryan Oosthuizen in action. Picture: Phando Jikelo/Independent Media

Published Apr 6, 2024

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The Blitzboks were unceremoniously dumped out of the cup competition as they lost 15-0 to Australia in the Hong Kong Sevens on Saturday.

Australia scored two unanswered tries through Nathan Lawson and Maurice Longbottom. Longbottom added a conversion and a penalty to see the Aussies to a comfortable lead.

It was another disappointing campaign for the Blitzboks in Hong Kong, as they continue their record of having never won the competition there.

Earlier in the day, the SA side looked like the complete package as they thumped Samoa 26-7.

Promising start

Though the South Africans had already qualified for the quarters courtesy of their wins over Ireland and Spain on Friday - there were some areas Blitzboks interim coach Philip Snyman wanted to work on for the second day of the competition.

“We’ll go back tonight and look at a lot of the mistakes we made. There’s still some errors we can work on and try to fix as quickly as possible before tomorrow when we play Samoa,” said Snyman on Friday.

“[It’s] Definitely still a work in progress, we don’t focus on where we’re going to end. We want to top our pool, so two from two is great from the first day.”

Against Ireland the Blitzboks had built a big lead, but allowed Ireland back into the game in the latter stages of the clash. With Spain, the Blitzboks conceded a try before they clicked into action and dominated the rest of the clash.

In their match agains Samoa, however, the Blitzboks started like a house on fire with three unanswered tries in the first half.