Blitzboks relieved system still brings rewards

The celebrations by the Springbok Sevens at the final whistle of the Emirates Dubai Sevens last Sunday may have looked muted but it was because the victory meant different things to various players.

Dewald Human, playing in honour of his recently deceased sister, broke down in tears.

Blitzbok captain Selvyn Davids was emotional during his post-match interview, while on the pitch, Justin Geduld sat on his knees, with tears flowing as well.

Geduld said he could not understand why it happened, but he found himself overwhelmed by emotion.

“I just had this emotion, and I could not quite understand why,” Geduld, who has only played eight tournaments since 2020, said.

“I had some thoughts afterwards and I think it was just relief that we still have what it takes to win tournaments.

“I knew how hard we worked to get back to this form where we can compete against anybody and on a personal level, how desperately I wanted to be this competitive again.”

Injuries had kept on tackling the 30-year-old flyhalf and doubt started to creep into the minds of stakeholders if he was ever going to make it back to the form that saw him earn an Olympic Games bronze medal and three World Series golds to add to a Commonwealth Games gold and a Rugby World Cup Sevens bronze.

But last weekend in Dubai, the old Geduld was back again, with all the guile, sleight of hand and brilliant vision, but he also put in a very strong defensive performance.

“It was such a relief for me,” he said. “The fact that we played well as a team and found that Blitzboks mojo again was awesome and for me, still being fit and standing after such a tough tournament, was just an emotional relief.

“It is really good to be back playing Sevens at this level again, but more importantly, for the team to be winning at that level again after the tough time we had, was equally pleasing.”

Geduld said the challenge now, to be successful in Cape Town for the first time since 2015, would be to keep the focus on the field.

“We love playing in front of our fans, family and friends and this tournament is our only opportunity in a season to do so.

“But there are distractions on the flip side and we need to overcome those this week.”

Fellow Capetonian, Zain Davids, will only play in his fourth Cape Town tournament in his 42nd HSBC SVNS tournament and said they are determined to bring that winning feeling back to the Cape Town Stadium.

“Last week, away in Dubai we could find each other again as a group,” Davids said.

“A lot of things came together for us there, we bonded and realised that our management prepared us well enough to win, it was now just us who needed to go out and prove it to ourselves.”

Davids feels the squad have the confidence and self-belief to do well in Cape Town this weekend and added that the home crowd will add extra energy.

“We have this one opportunity and if we played for our management in particular last weekend, this time we are adding our families to the motivation,” he said.

“And of course, we owe the supporters a performance that they can be proud of.

“Playing in Cape Town is a privilege, not pressure and we should see it as such.”

SA Rugby Communications