The Blitzboks produced a scintillating performance to thrash Canada and progress to the semi-finals of the Commonwealth Games Sevens in Birmingham on Saturday night.
The South Africa were in firm control of the quarter-final as they beat Canada 33-0 to advance into the top four, where they will meet Australia at 2pm on Sunday afternoon.
However, the Blitzboks will be without Siviwe Soyizwapi as the SA captain’s tournament was cut short after a head clash with a teammate during the 34-0 win against Scotland earlier on Saturday.
Zain Davids, who took over the captaincy in the quarter-final from Soyizwapi, said: “We will always be happy with a victory, especially as we stuck to our processes, defended well and we also did our basics well, so I think we can be happy.
“Losing ‘Shakes’ is not great – he is a proper leader who leads from the front and never gives up, the players really look up to him and we realise we have big shoes to fill, but we will try and do that for Siviwe.”
Three first-half tries against Canada by Ronald Brown, Christie Grobbelaar and Angelo Davids set up SA’s 21-0 lead at the break, with Davids’ intercept-try from 80m out – while Brown was in the sin-bin for a high tackle – summing up the Blitzboks’ dominance.
The Canadians were stifled by defensive pressure and made a number of unforced errors which the Blitzboks pounced on with gratitude.
Brown got his second try not long after returning to the field in the second half, scoring from a Canadian mistake to stretch the lead to 26-0.
Mfundo Ndhlovu, who was declared fit after taking a heavy knock on the first day, also got his name on the score sheet with just over one minute left in the game.
Photo: @Blitzboks/Twitter
