The talent bursting out of the South African Sevens squad has not been fulfilled in the opening two rounds of the IRB World Series. At the Gold Coast in Australia they came third, then they managed to lose to France in the Dubai quarterfinal and, with the last move of the Plate Final, they lost to Australia. So they come to Port Elizabeth this week with much to ponder.
The return of last year’s South African Sevens Player of the Year, Cecil Afrika, will make a difference. Afrika is the side’s playmaker and a prolific try scorer, but his return must be weighed against the departure of Robert Ebersohn. The former captain has returned to Bloemfontein to begin preparations for the Super Rugby season, a sure sign that Christmas must be just around the corner.
The Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium is the new venue for the South African leg of the series and many thumbs are being held and fingers crossed for a substantial crowd. The major difference from the tournament’s previous home in George is size. Outeniqua Park held 12 000, but the stadium in Port Elizabeth holds 45 000. It is, therefore, a significant leap of faith by the South African Rugby Union to move the tournament.
The union is desperately trying to uplift the game in the Bay area because of political pressure from within to take Super Rugby there from 2013. There was a well supported Test match between the Springboks and All Blacks there earlier this year, but the crowd was swelled by the large number of free tickets distributed. The same may be the case for the Sevens, but, if the latest news is to be believed, 30 000 tickets have been sold for the tournament’s two days.
Given the transient nature of coaching in South Africa it is remarkable to think that Paul Treu is in his ninth season in charge of the Blitzbokke. In his first season he was still playing, at the start of the season, under the care of Chester Williams, but Williams signed to coach the Cats and a temporary position became a permanent one.
The team showed a gradual improvement under Treu, finishing as runners-up to New Zealand in 2007-2008. That was the year that the South African Rugby Union chose to contract players to the Sevens squad for the first time and to base them in Stellenbosch. The reward was the breakthrough season that came in 2008-2009 when the Blitzbokke won the IRB Series for the first time.
“That was the culmination of a four-year plan and we’re in the second season of the next one right now,” said Treu. “The South African Rugby Union are buying into the plan. It’s the first time ever that we’ve been allowed to sign schoolboys and that’s a sure sign that they see value in building for the future. The long-term plan is that those guys will be 24 or 25 in 2016 and we will put a lot of energy into developing their games before then.”
The significance of 2016 is that Sevens rugby has been admitted to the Olympic fold and will debut in Rio de Janeiro. One of the schoolboys signed by Treu is 19-year-old William Small-Smith, another product of the prolific Grey College in Bloemfontein, who will be one of the players to look out for in Port Elizabeth.
One bad omen is that the Blitzbokke have flattered to deceive many times in their home leg. Other than the championship-winning season of three years ago they have never won the tournament and it has become something of an albatross around the team’s neck.
In George, the progress of the team always had a direct corollary to bums on seats, with large swathes emptying when the Blitzbokke were not involved in the final stages. The challenge at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium will be to ensure that doesn’t happen if Treu’s men fail to perform.
It doesn’t help that Australia, their conquerors in Dubai, are in the same pool group this week, as are Kenya. The latter forced a 12-all draw with South Africa in George last year, a result that forced the Blitzbokke into a quarterfinal with Fiji, which they lost. New Zealand beat Fiji to win the tournament, but this year it looks as if the 15’s world champions are in a rebuilding phase.
But Treu is adamant that there are no easy games any more, with the Olympics being the carrot forcing sides to adopt a more professional approach. “Now that there is going to be Olympic funding coming into Sevens you are definitely going to see some major improvement.
“The landscape of Sevens is going to change and a lot of countries will become a lot more competitive.”