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South Africa intent on giving back to ‘special’ crowd at Cape Town SVNS
Walking off the field at Cape Town Stadium after their second loss of the weekend, the Springbok Women’s Sevens received a roaring cheer from their home supporters.
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The newly-promoted South Africa side captured the hearts and imagination of rugby fans at last weekend’s SVNS circuit opener in Dubai, which included a thriller against New Zealand.
But playing at your home tournament is something special – every player on the series will tell you that. It just means more to have most of the crowd “supporting you and backing you all the way.”
South Africa opened their Cape Town SVNS campaign with a valiant loss to Dubai bronze medallists France but were handed a big defeat by series heavyweights Canada later on.
Both teams made the Cup semi-finals at last weekend’s SVNS leg in the UAE.
It doesn’t get much tougher, but the South Africans showed a wealth of fight as they looked to make their home fans proud – and that’s exactly what they did.
Fans were cheering and asking for autographs as SVNS star Nadine Roos led her team off the field and down the tunnel at the famed rugby venue.
“It’s always special playing in front of your home crowd. The atmosphere is amazing out there – the support that we get, that carries you out on the field,” Roos told RugbyPass.
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“We wanted to give them the performance that we had last week in Dubai but we’re not sticking to what we need to do and we slip away, they’re small margins.
“We just need to regroup and get back together to give this crowd something back.
“We don’t always look at it as an individual, we look at it as a group, and it’s special to play here,” she added.
“It’s always special playing in front of the home crowd, people supporting you and backing you all the way.”
South Africa are down but certainly not out ahead of their third and final pool match against the United States of America on Saturday afternoon.
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The new-look SVNS series offers the two best third-placed sides in pool play an opportunity to progress through to the Cup quarter-finals and beyond.
But led by SVNS icon Ilona Maher, last season’s World Sevens Series bronze medallists pose a formidable challenge – but the Boks will have 30,000+ supporters in their corner.
“We just need to regroup now, look at what we can do better as a team and not focus so much on the opponents,” Roos said after the loss to Canada.
“If we can do that, I’m sure the result will speak for itself.”
Comments on RugbyPass
If he had stopped insisting on playing in the backrow, instead of wing, where everyone told him he should, he would have been a Bok years ago….
11 Go to comments‘Salads don’t win scrums’ 😂 I love that.
19 Go to commentsCan’t wait for the article that talks about misogyny in Ireland. Somehow.
16 Go to commentsI would like to see a rule change, when the attacking team is held up over the try line, by allowing the defensive team to restart a goal line drop out releases the pressure for the defensive team, but what if the attacking team had to restart a tap 5m out from the defensive team it gives the attacking team to apply more pressure, there are endless options for the attacking side and it will keep the fans in suspence.
2 Go to commentsLess modern South African males predictably triggered.
16 Go to commentsMy heart is with Quins, but the head is convinced Toulouse have too much. Ntamack is back, his timing and wisdom has been missed.
1 Go to commentsWow, what a starting line up for the Sharks) Tasty up front,kremer vs Tshituka or venter …fiery ,,Lavannini ,,will he knobble etzebeth? Biggest game for belleau?
1 Go to commentsIt was rubbish to watch, Blues weren’t even present. Did what they had to do, nothing more. Should be better next week against canes.
1 Go to commentsI’ve just noticed that this match has an all-French refereeing team. Surely a game like this ought to have a neutral ref? Although looking at the BBC preview of the Saints game, Raynal is also down as reffing that - so there may be some confusion about who is reffing what.
1 Go to commentsIf Havili can play anywhere in the back line, why not first 5. #10.
11 Go to commentsThe dressing room had already left for their summer break before they ran out in Dublin that year, and that’s on the coach. Franco Smith has undoubtedly made progress, particularly their maul, developing squad players and increasing squad depth. And against a very tight budget too. That said they were too lightweight last year and got found out against both Toulon and Munster in consecutive games. Better this season so far but they’ve developed something of a slow start habit occasionally, most notably losing at home to Northampton who played them at their own game. Play offs will ultimately show whether there has been tangible progress on last year, or not…!
2 Go to commentsAustralian Rugby has been a disaster, by not incorporating learning from previous successful campaigns. QLD Reds 2011 - Waratahs 2014. Players, coaches and administrators appoint there representatives for scheduled meetings, organisation’s agreement’s assessments and correspondence. This why a unified Rugby Union under one entity works. Every Rugby nation has taken that path. Was most difficult in the Northern hemisphere with over 100 years of club rugby before the game become professional. Took a lot of humility for those unions to eventually work together.
7 Go to commentsThough Wilson’s sacking was pretty brutal, it wasn’t just down to that Leinster game; Glasgow had a lot of 2nd half collapses that season, in the URC and Europe, and only just scraped into the playoffs. Franco Smith has definitely been an improvement, some players are delivering far more than they did under Wilson.
2 Go to commentsjesus - that front 5!
1 Go to commentsShould be an absolute cracker of a game! Will be great to see DuPont & Ntamack in tandem once again🔥
1 Go to commentsBest team ever…. To have played? These guys are still pressure chokers. Came nowhere when it counted. What a joke
81 Go to commentsMusk defends anonymous terrorism, fascism, threats against individuals and children etc etc But a Rugby club account….lock ‘em up!!!
2 Go to commentsActually the era defining moment came a few years earlier. February 2002 to be precise, when Michael D Higgins as finance minister at the time introduced his sports persons tax relief bill to the dial. As the politicians of the day stated “It seems to be another daft K Club frolic born in Kildare amongst the well-paid professional jockeys with whom the Minister plays golf” and that the scheme represented “a savage uncaring vision of Ireland and one that should be condemned”. The irfu and Leinster would be nowhere near the position they are in today without this key component of the finances.
5 Go to commentsIt is crystal clear that people who make such threats on line should be tried and imprisoned. Those with responsibility in social media companies who don’t facilitate this should be convicted. In real life, I have free speech to approach someone like Reinach and verbally threaten him. I am risking a conviction or a slap but I could do it. In the old days, If someone anonymously threatened someone by letter the police would ask and use evidence from the postal system. Unlike the Post, social media companies have complete instant and legal access to the content in social media. They make money from the data, billions. Yet, they turn a blind eye to terrorism, Nazi-ism and industrial levels of threats against individuals including their address and childrens schools being published online all from ananoymous accounts not real people. They claim free speech. Free speech for anonymous trolls/voilent thugs threatening people under false names? The fault is with the perps but also social media companies who think anonymous personas posting death threats constitutes free speech.
2 Go to commentsSo if this ain’t the best Irish team ever then who exactly is? I don’t remember any other Irish team being this good & winning a series in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Yes I may rip them often for 8 X QF RWC exits & twice not even making it to the QF, but they’re a damn good team who many think can only improve, including me!
81 Go to comments