Wellington Hurricanes captain Ardie Savea has been suspended for one week after a throat-slitting gesture at an opponent during Friday's Super Rugby match against Melbourne Rebels.
The Springbok Sevens team will leave no stone unturned to get back to winning ways when they return to South Africa on Tuesday after a disappointing North American leg of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series.
The DHL Stormers all but secured the South African Shield with a tense victory in Cape Town on Saturday, while the Emirates Lions kept their Vodacom United Rugby Championship playoff hopes alive in Pretoria with a second win on the trot, but in both instances the victorious teams had to withstand serious comebacks from their opponents.
The Springbok Sevens team came back from 19 points down to draw against France (19-19) and then scored six tries against Japan (40-12) to finish Day One of the HSBC Canada Sevens on a satisfying note at BC Place in Vancouver on Friday (Canadian time).
Nolusindiso Booi will lead a Springbok Women squad with eight potential debutants to Europe later this month – including a number of younger players and a former South African netball player – for Tests against Canada and Spain in Madrid.
Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber expressed his satisfaction with the strides made at their physical and rugby development camp in Cape Town and said they were ticking the desired boxes, as the second week of the camp concluded on Friday.
SA Rugby confirmed that former CEO, Rian Oberholzer, had returned to the role in an interim capacity to fill the vacancy left by the departure of Jurie Roux.
The Springbok Sevens team arrived from the USA in a cold Vancouver this week battered and bruised, having lost four of five matches at the HSBC LA Sevens last weekend, while Jaiden Baron, Masande Mtshali and Travis Ismaiel returned home after picking up injuries last weekend that ruled them out of action.
The pressure on the South African Vodacom United Rugby Championship franchises will strike a new level this weekend as the competition hits the fourth-last pool round and the race for playoff spots moves up a few notches.
Those who watched last weekend's HSBC LA Sevens would have been excused if they wondered which masked player the Springbok Sevens team had on the field, but they would probably have been more puzzled on what Blitzbok team was on display as one the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series premier participants stumbled and slid through a weekend of disappointing results.