Five men’s teams still unbeaten after dramatic day one in Valladolid

HSBC SVNS World Championship leaders the Blitzboks are one of five men’s sides with unbeaten 2-0 records after day one in Valladolid, having overcome Great Britain and Kenya in nail-biting Pool A matches.

South Africa emerged as the best team in men’s sevens during the regular season, taking out the SVNS 1 title. The Blitzboks carried that form into the World Championship Series, winning the Cathay/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens for the first time.

Tristan Leyds and Shilton van Wyk were both prolific for the Blitzboks, as they began their quest for SVNS Valladolid glory with two hard-fought wins. South Africa will take on an unbeaten Australia side on day two to determine the one seed out of the group.

Deitrich Roache was the hero for the Aussies in an extra-time 15-10 victory against Kenya on Friday morning. Liam Barry’s side backed that up with a thrilling five-point triumph over an impressive GB outfit at the Estadio Jose Zorilla.

“Obviously very important; we know this comp’s very tight. We also know Kenya are a really good team so they’ve pretty much pushed us to the end there,” Roache told RugbyPass after Australia’s win over Kenya.

“We’re just happy to get the win but we know we didn’t really play our game. We’ve got an opportunity against GB to fix those wrongs.

“The body’s getting old but for a game like that, under that much pressure, I had to pull something out of the old bag.”

New Zealand and Argentina will go head-to-head to determine the top-ranked side in Pool B, with Germany and Uruguay both winless in that group. The All Blacks Sevens kicked things off with a dominant 40-0 blitz of the Uruguayans.

Stand-in All Blacks Sevens captain Sione Molia finished off a well-worked ‘soccer’ try as the New Zealanders continued to build up a strong lead. Six different try-scores made their mark, before another impressive performance against Germany later on.

“The word that we used the whole week was just grateful,” Molia told this publication after New Zealand’s first game. “Grateful that we get to be on the other side of the world in Spain and do the things that we love.

“That’s all big ups to the management and the leadership group back home, just making it real easy for whoever gets that call to fill in the shoes to just go in and do the job.”

Hometown favourites Spain had their hopes of a perfect 2-0 record dashed by France in the final match on Friday. Simon Desert, Ryan Rebbadj and Yerim Fall all scored as the French raced out to a 19-0 half-time lead.

That saw France bounce back from an earlier defeat to Fiji, who are the front-runners to top the group. Fiji went two-from-two, with Filipe Sauturaga and Kavekini Tanivanuakula crossing for crucial second-half tries in a 19-7 victory against the USA.

SVNS Valladolid

Men’s results

Pool A

Australia 15–10 Kenya

South Africa 17–12 Great Britain

Australia 26–21 Great Britain

South Africa 14–0 Kenya

Pool B

New Zealand 40–0 Uruguay

Argentina 26–17 Germany

New Zealand 33–12 Germany

Argentina 40–14 Uruguay

Pool C

Fiji 26–12 France

Spain 26–21 USA

Fiji 19–7 USA

France 19–14 Spain