For the Women’s Sevens teams at the Cape Town SVNS 2024 Day 1 it was the usual suspects as Australia, New Zealand, USA and France moved into the semifinals, but on the men’s side of the draw, Fiji and Spain made it consecutive Cup semifinals and are joined by France and South Africa in Sunday’s play-offs.
The Blitzboks pleased the home crowd as more than 30,000 were in attendance and the SA men made their way into the semifinals where they will face Spain, after beating Argentina 29-5 in the final game of the opening day buoyed by good home support in glorious weather in Cape Town. The Fijian men will square off against the French in the second Cup semifinal – France tore the NZ men apart 47-15 (with no Antoine Dupont in sight).
South Africa head coach Philip Snyman said: “We are not getting ahead of ourselves because we are in the semi-finals. There was good energy in the group all week. So overall there is a positive mindset all around and that showed today. That is done now, we have achieved our aim to finish top of the pool, but the work is far from completed.
We have to come back tomorrow even better and make sure we are clinical in everything we do. If we can maintain our ball possession tomorrow like we did today and the tackle completion remains the same as well, we will have a good day.”
Australia women will play the USA and New Zealand will have to overcome the French in the women’s Cup semifinals.
Of the new format implemented in Cape Town (which will again be used in Singapore in 2025), Australian try-scoring machine and World Rugby Women’s 7s Player of the Year Madi Levi told us, “I guess it is four games instead of six – we love playing footy so it doesnt matter too much how many we play. Some people might look at it as more pressure as you have to win your pool games but we are just treating it the same as last week and not looking too far ahead and taking it game by game and taking it as it comes.”
Photo Credit- World Rugby – Madi Levi – Cape Town SVNS 2024
Levi added of playing in the Mother City in South Africa, “We love playing here in Cape Town – It is one of our favourite places to play especially off the back of Dubai and we kinda have the home-crowd advantage as we support the girls here from Manenberg School – to have them in the stands we can definitely hear it and it helps give us an edge over some of the teams – Cape Town knows how to put on a party and the atmosphere is great and everyone in the crowd is awesome.” She scored yet another hat trick in the win over Brazil.
You can see all the results from the Cape Town SVNS 2024 here.
Japan Secure Another Top 8 Finish In Cape Town
The two Asian teams started proceedings in Pool B at the Cape Town SVNs 2024 and it was the Japanese who were triumphant by winning the match 14-7. The Chinese have paid for their odd selection policy over these two rounds of the SVNS Series and it may well come back to haunt them at the tail end of the season.
China went on to lose to the Black Ferns Sevens 10-40, which means under the new format in Cape Town, that they will be playing for a best possible 9th place if they win both matches on Sunday.
Photo Credit- World Rugby – Japan beat China 14-7 in Pool B in Cape Town
Japan’s Raichielmiyo Bativakalolo, who has played more than 50 matches for Sakura 7s on the SVNS circuit, told us after the NZ 12-22 loss (which was a close game and will still ensure the team of a top 8 finish for the second consecutive round), “It was a tough game against New Zealand but we wanted to focus on how we would improve from the first game where we beat China. We knew the Black Ferns Sevens side is a great team but I dont feel we played that with any pressure on us and we talked before the game about controlling our own game.
We had some good moments but we need to improve our on-field communication and we hope to improve that on Sunday. This season we have started well in Dubai and we need to secure these vital Series points here in Cape Town too.”
Japan Sakura 7s play Ireland on Sunday for the 5th place semifinal, while China plays Spain in the 9th place semifinal.
Rugby SVNS News
- Cape Town SVNS 2024 – Ultimate Fan Guide.
- USA Women’s Eagles 7s Want To “Let those beautiful moments in practice shine on the field”.
- World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2025 Details Announced.
- Fans Guide To HSBC SVNS Series 2024-2025.
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