At some stage we are going to live in a post-Rassie Erasmus Springbok era... And what will be the plan then? Ask Jon Cardinelli.
The splendour of Singapore means it is considered a popular shopping destination, but Springbok Sevens co-captain Impi Visser insists that is the very last thing on their minds this week.
The Hollywoodbets Sharks host Leinster in one of their biggest tests of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship this season, looking to continue to make fortress Hollywoodbets Kings Park a tough place to visit.
The Springbok Sevens team are ready to let the ‘Gino’ out of the bottle when they face Uruguay, Australia and New Zealand in their pool at the Cathay/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens, which moves to a new venue this year, the 50,000-seater Kai Tak Stadium.
The four South African teams will enter the weekend desperate to register victories as the Vodacom United Rugby Championship reaches boiling point with 15 of the 16 teams still in contention for playoff places with only five games left to book their quarter-final spots.
There is a real belief amongst the players in the Springbok Sevens squad that they are improving as a team and doing the right things well has become a blueprint for them, according to experienced forward Ryan Oosthuizen, who arrived in Hong Kong this week for a seventh time as a Blitzbok.
It was a largely satisfying weekend for South Africa’s teams in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship as three of the four side – the Vodacom Bulls, Hollywoodbets Sharks and DHL Stormers – came away with victories to boost their playoff hopes, while the Emirates Lions managed to secure a losing bonus point away from home to remain within striking range of the top eight.
Fifty seven tournaments into his HSBC SVNS career, Siviwe Soyizwapi returns to Hong Kong for a sixth time, older and wiser, but just as determined as he was in 2016, when he made his Blitzbok debut at the Hong Kong Stadium.
DHL Western Province will travel to Pretoria to take on the Bulls Daisies in the final of the Women’s Premier Division next weekend after edging the Sanlam Boland Dames 32-29 in a frantic match in Bellville, while the defending champions closed out the final round of the competition with an emphatic 96-0 dismantling of the Free State Women in Pretoria.
Springbok speedster Cheslin Kolbe became the first backline player since 2013 to take the prestigious SA Rugby Men’s Player of the Year title at a glittering SA Rugby Awards ceremony at the International Convention Centre in Cape Town, while Nadine Roos took home the top women’s award for a second time.