The Springbok Sevens team won’t be looking for revenge when they head into this weekend’s Wellington Sevens tournament, the latest leg on the HSBC World Series.
SuperSport
Instead they will be looking to improve their own play in a tournament they traditionally struggle in, to ensure that they take another step forward as a team in their quest to win the world crown.
Blitzbokke captain Kyle Brown was adamant that despite the loss to New Zealand in Port Elizabeth in December, the door had been closed on that tournament and the team had moved forward.
“We’re not disappointed at how we played in Port Elizabeth,” Brown told SuperSport.com, “We were happy at how we grew as a team in the three weeks together and we did our best. Now what we need to do is carry on that momentum. I don’t think we will get all emotional or talk about revenge over New Zealand. We want to do as well as we can.”
Brown acknowledges that Wellington hasn’t been their best stomping ground in the past, with the slower pitch not helping their pacy game plan much.
“We haven’t done fantastically but we will be using our same old recipe of not looking too far ahead. We have a tough pool against the Cook Islands, USA and England. All we will be looking for is a good start and to take it from there. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”
Brown was keen to put in a good word for former Bulls midfielder Stephan Dippennaar, who will make his Blitzbokke debut this weekend.
“Dippies is a great player and what makes it easy is that he is a fantastic guy who fits into the culture of the squad very well. He takes all the hard work on his chin and loves it. He is definitely part of the family at the moment.”
After Wellington the Blitzbokke move to Las Vegas, where they won last year. But for now they will be looking to break their Wellington hoodoo, and pick up some valuable points with a good performance.
The Wellington Sevens will be broadcast live on SuperSport this weekend (as from tonight, or should we say very early Friday morning). The Blitzbokke open the tournament in the early hours against the USA at 02:00 (SA Time) and then face the Cook Islands at 04:56. Their final game is at 09:50 when they face England. All games will be live on SuperSport 1.
Unfortunately England u20s hammered Scotland u20s 59 3 in Six nations u20 match played in Glasgow last night.
30@ Just For Kicks:
Thanks JFK that would be great, pity am working so miss it, will be interesting to log in here later and see what the opnions are on the game, especially interested to hear how Scotland no. 8 Denton gets on in his first start, he has a Scottish mom but was born in Zimbabwe and apparently played at some level for Easter Province, now plays for Edinburgh. Have a good day man, go Scotland!
@ Bullscot:
oh well time to face the cold go and scrape the ice off the car and get to work.
Oeps that should be Eastern Province, far too early in the morning here
@ Bullscot:I see the temperatures are plummeting, -40 in some parts of `eastern Europe, 200 people dead as a direct result of the cold snap.
Hellooooooooooooooo
@ grootblousmile:Very inspired comment – Hellooooooo to you to!
I see the England cricketers have led by example again, out for 141. I’ve tried to find a decent pitch report, but what I have found, is that no way is the score a reflection of the pitch. Just poor batting. I have also read that because of the DRS, the umpires have started erring on the side of the bowlers – more LBW decisions given in this series than in the history of cricket – and that is confusing the batsmen. One wonders, how hard it has to be to confuse an English batsman!
If we do well in NZ, we have a good chance of taking the No.1 spot again – now that would be a positive for Kirsten to take forward to England!
The New Zealanders take the Wellington Sevens… easily
36 @ Just For Kicks:
I’m a man of few words… well not really… hehehe
To sum up my earlier comment (39), Blitzbokke go on to beat Tonga 26-0. Didn’t see the match, but sounds emphatic. Why? We have such potential in this team, we should be tearing up the series, not hovering. Lets hope they learn from this one (again!!!! – maybe, like the English batsmen, they just have very short memories!!) and win the next tournament
37@ Just For Kicks:Pakistan doing a little better in the second innings, 65/2 currently – effectively 23/2
@ Just For Kicks:
Pakistan 99 & 131/2 (53.3 ov)
England 141
Pakistan lead by 89 runs with 8 wickets remaining
Day 2 – Session 3
Users Online
Total 197 users including 0 member, 197 guests, 0 bot online
Most users ever online were 3735, on 31 August 2022 @ 6:23 pm
No Counter as from 31 October 2009: 41,483,104 Page Impressions
_