Senatla sees off Scots

The Blitzboks scored three unanswered tries in the second half to clinch a 21-5 win over Scotland in their second pool game at the Dubai Sevens. CRAIG LEWIS reports.

It was a sweet piece of revenge for the Springbok Sevens side, with the Scots having clinched an agonising last-gasp win over South Africa in the Cup final of the London Sevens last season.

There would have been fears of a possible repeat when Scotland opening up a 5-0 lead at the break on Friday, but the Blitzboks settled any nerves when try-scoring machine Seabelo Senatla showed a clean pair of heels to dart over and score soon after the restart.

With less than three minutes remaining, the Blitzboks demonstrated their clever use of the boot with a beautiful chip over the defence from Justin Geduld enabling Rosco Speckman to grubber ahead and dot down with a superb finish that saw South Africa open up a handy 14-5 lead.

Senatla then added the finishing touches to a strong second-half performance as he blitzed away to score with the final play of the game to complete a comfortable win in the end.

In a hard-fought first half, the Blitzboks had been guilty of some poor decision-making when on attack, and although they did some strong work on defence, Scotland struck just before the break when James Fleming went over to score in the corner. That would turn out to be their only points of the match, though.

Earlier in the day, the Blitzboks kicked off their new campaign with a resounding 46-0 win over newcomers Uganda.

Having led 19-0 at the break, the Springbok Sevens powered their way through the second half, with Senatla and Philip Snyman wrapping up a brace of tries each.

The Blitzboks’ final fixture on day one of the Dubai Sevens will be against the USA at 17:06 SA time.

Photo: David Becker/Getty Images

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