Philip Snyman hailed the impact made by the Blitzboks bench in helping the Cape Town Sevens hosts make an unbeaten start to their campaign on Saturday.
The Blitzboks got their Cape Town Sevens campaign off to a solid start with two wins out of two against Great Britain and the USA.
REPORT: Blitzboks bulldoze USA
The latter game saw the Springbok Sevens come under pressure when the USA capitalised on Justin Geduld’s yellow card for a dangerous tackle, but the Blitzboks’ substitutes stood as Ronald Brown scored a last-minute try to seal the victory.
“We are very happy with the win,” assistant coach and former captain Snyman said after the game. “Two out of two, which is what we wanted. These first two games were important to us.
“We made life difficult for ourselves with the yellow card [against the USA]. We found ourselves at 14-14 with one minute to go.
“I must give a lot of credit to the guys coming off the bench. They showed a lot of composure, played our game plan and sealed the deal with a winning try.
“Overall, we are happy with the two wins, but we need to realise that the further we go into the tournament, we will have fewer and fewer opportunities,” Snyman added. “We have to capitalise on the chances that we get. When we get teams into the corner, we need to knock them out.”
A standout facet over the past two games has been the Blitzboks’ defence, which has conceded just three tries, two of those coming when they were down to six men against the USA.
“We are very happy with our defence,” Snyman said. “It started back last week in Dubai. When the other team does make linebreaks, we hunt them down.
“This last game was exactly the same. I thought the USA would go and score in the corner, to be honest, but Quewin Nortje came from nowhere, chasing down, made the tackle and we won the turnover.
“For us, that’s crucial. That’s all about the pride we have in the Springbok Sevens jersey. We will never give an easy try away.”
Sandile Ngcobo’s charges will conclude their pool stage action at 7.34pm against Ireland, who beat the USA and Great Britain in their earlier matches.
The last time these two sides last faced each other in Cape Town was in last year’s World Cup, when Ireland bundled the Blitzboks out of their own tournament in the semi-finals.
“To be honest, we have closed that chapter,” Snyman said. “We are only going to focus on the next game.
“Our main goal is to top our pool, so we will go out and give everything to beat Ireland. We know they are a quality team. We must just do what we do best and keep focused on our structure.”
Photo: Shaun Roy/Gallo Images