Springbok Sevens coach Philip Snyman has bemoaned his team’s lack of consistency over the course of the World Sevens Series. South Africa ended the league phase of the season in fourth place after a strong finish in Singapore on Sunday, where they won both their games but were still placed ninth.
Argentina won the league despite a defeat to the Blitzboks in their pool match on Saturday, with the Top 8 teams now setting their sights on the Grand Finale in Los Angeles early next month.
Ultimately, the Blitzboks won three of their four matches in Singapore. They showed character to win both their matches on Sunday — 14-12 against the US and 26-7 over Australia — with only nine available players. However, a heavy defeat in their pool opener against Great Britain meant they were consigned to the minor placings.
Snyman said the weekend was “bittersweet” but that, overall, he was happy with the way in which the players fought in their last three games.
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“That first game against Britain put us on the backfoot, first with the early red card and then playing with only five players later after a yellow card,” said Snyman. “We need to address our discipline as it wasn’t up to standard, with too many cards and too many penalties.
“After that game, we decided to judge ourselves on our last three matches. We put up a massive fight against Argentina, the world’s number one team, and on Sunday, despite beating the USA, we were not at our best and not clinical, which is probably the story of our season — too up and down.
"Then we delivered one of our most clinical performances against Australia, so while I have some mixed emotions, I’m very happy with the way in which we finished the tournament.”
Snyman said the lack of consistency is frustrating: “I believe in this squad and the programme, but we need to be more consistent, which is why we’re not amongst the top three.
"We still made a massive step up from last season, though.
“We have beaten Argentina twice and we played in two finals, but in the Asian leg over the last two weeks, we came up short. We will continue to work hard and make a mental shift to see how we can be more consistent because this team has shown they can beat anyone.”
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Snyman added that the Blitzboks have made progress this season, although they set higher goals for themselves.
“Coming into this tournament, we wanted to play according to our standards, and we did that in the last couple of games, so we’re happy with that, but we’re still too inconsistent to be regarded as one of the top teams,” he said.
“If we can’t get that right, we’ll struggle to be amongst the best. At the start of the season, we said we wanted to be amongst the top teams while also blooding new players with the 2028 Olympic Games in mind.
“I think we did that, with someone like Zander Reynders making his debut and taking massive steps forward every tournament, growing as a player and a leader, while Gino Cupido also came through. We are heading in the right direction.”