The South African Sevens rugby team wants a much better start to 2019 than their 2018 finish.
The Blitzboks are currently fifth on World Rugby’s Sevens Series log after they battled to match their own high standards in the opening two tournaments.
This weekend’s tournament in Hamilton, New Zealand, will be the ideal opportunity to bounce back.
The reality is that the team lost quite a few of their top players recently due to injury or moving to the 15 man code.
They can still count on experience, especially in the likes of Kyle Brown who will match the record of playing in 68 world series tournaments set by Frankie Horne.
Brown says Horne is an inspiration for the whole team.
“He’s a different kind of trooper and he did something very special and he was one of my inspirations. He dedicated his career to sevens and you get so many questions on moving to fifteens and Frankie build the foundation of what you see today,” says Brown.
New players who are looking to build on those foundations are players such as Stedman Gans and Dewald Human. It’s Human’s seventh tournament.
“Some of the guys are senior players and they are helping the younger guys to focus. So I think we will be ready for this tour and leave the past two tournaments. That was a learning curve to focus on the process and not the outcome,” says Human.
The Blitzboks first group game is against fellow Africans Kenya late on Saturday evening South African time, while the other two teams in the group are Scotland and France.
