Springbok Sevens coach Sandile Ngcobo has praised his players after the Blitzboks qualified for the last four in Australia, where they will face Fiji in the HSBC Sydney Sevens semi-finals on Sunday.
The Blitzboks beat Uruguay (28-12) and New Zealand (17-14) in their Pool B matches before knocking Ireland out of the cup competition with a 26-12 victory in the final on Saturday morning to keep their title hopes alive
Against the All Blacks Sevens, the Blitzboks needed a late penalty from Ricardo Duarttee to gain the upper hand in the pool, and they put in a clinical performance against Ireland.
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It was a huge improvement from last weekend in Hamilton, where the Blitzboks lost both matches in the knock-out stages of the HSBC NZ Sevens. One of those losses was against Ireland and for Ngcobo their performance in Sydney against the same opposition was personal.
“Everybody agreed after Hamilton that we cannot be happy with those performances and that we needed to step up and represent the badge and all it stands for with everything we had,” he said.