'I cannot fault the effort': Afrika maligns poor 14 minutes in Montevideo

Springbok Women’s Sevens boss Cecil Afrika was left rueing two halves of HSBC SVNS 2 rugby in Uruguay last weekend.

Even though South Africa finished third in Montevideo and secured a HSBC SVNS World Championship spot, the 38-year-old head coach maligned a poor first half against Spain [15-14 loss] in their tournament opener and their second half against Argentina [22-10 loss].

“We had two poor halves basically,” Afrika said. “We started poorly against Spain in the first match on Saturday and finished poorly against Argentina in the last match on Sunday, but in between we really did well.

“Those were bad patches of rugby, but I have to look at the rest of the tournament as well and we really played excellent rugby against China, Brazil and Kenya.

“Especially our defensive effort was massive and that did put teams under huge pressure. I cannot fault the effort from the ladies, who really gave everything they had.”

In spite of those two losses, which bookended their stay in Uruguay, there was plenty of reason for optimism. This included debuts for Shanidiné Bezuidenhout and Maceala Samboya.

This week in São Paulo, South Africa will play Spain, Kenya and Brazil on Day 1, before matches against Argentina and China on Day 2. It will also provide the Boks with an opportunity to claim the overall HSBC SVNS 2 crown.

“We need to play matches at this level to get use to the intensity and quality as we are also in the process of building depth in our squad,” he said.

“We gave Shanidinè Bezuidenhout the opportunity to debut in this tournament and she did well, while someone like Lerato Makua, who has not played that many tournaments before, really stood out with her effort.

“She has now matured into a very good international sevens player and that came from being exposed to this level of rugby.”