With former world sevens players of the year Werner Kok and Seabelo Senatla leading the way, the Blitzboks powered past Samoa 26-10 on Saturday morning to qualify for the Dubai Sevens Cup semi-finals.
The World Sevens Series defending champions – and the winners in the Emirates a year ago – had far too much class, power and pace for the Samoans, who managed to score two tries, one in each half.
Faalemiga Selesele, in the first half, and Alamanda Tomuga, in the second period, scored tries for the Samoans after some excellent offloading in the tackle.
But that said, the South Africans also slipped off their men in the build-up to those two tries.
Senatla scored a first-half brace for the Neil Powell’s men, the second try an excellent piece of individual work where he stepped in and out to beat two Samoan defenders.
Post Match: @Blitzboks head coach @Neil5Powell spoke to us after his sides 26 - 10 victory over Samoa #Dubai7s pic.twitter.com/SYwzkjowI5
— World Rugby Sevens (@WorldRugby7s) December 2, 2017
In the second half, Kok scored a stunner after showing great skills to release the ball in a tackle, re-gather it, and go over, and then replacement Tim Agaba got his team’s fourth try late on.
The Blitzboks will face Fiji in the semi-finals at 2.19pm, with the islanders having beaten Scotland 35-24 in their quarter-final.
On day one of the tournament in Dubai on Friday, the Blitzboks beat Uganda, Kenya and Canada.
@jacq_west