Captain Siviwe Soyizwapi says the Blitzboks aim to execute better at this weekend’s Perth Sevens.
The eight teams contesting the SVNS series are at it again and for the Springbok Sevens team, the weekend cannot arrive any sooner.
According to Siviwe Soyizwapi, who leads the Blitzboks into battle at HBF Park in the fourth tournament of the 2025-26 series, they are eager to redeem themselves after some uncharacteristic errors tripped them up last weekend in Singapore.
That was quite a let-down for the team who conquered all in Cape Town in December and they had to take a hard inward look at themselves, the captain admitted before posing with his opposing counterparts at the traditional captains photo, this time at the scenic Scarborough beach in Perth.
“It was a tough weekend in Singapore, so coming here and out to the local beach for the captains’ photo does perk you up, especially on a beautiful day such as today,” Soyizwapi said before turning his attention to the weekend’s action again.
“We know how much potential we have as a group, so making silly errors is frustrating. We don’t mind the odd bad call that comes our way, that will happen but dropping a ball or making a bad pass or missing a tackle, those things are on us and no one else can be blamed for that.”
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What will make the weekend’s action more compelling to watch for the pundits will be the change in tactics from the various teams as many faced off last weekend as well.
The Blitzboks will again face Spain and Fiji, with Argentina their only “new” opponent in Pool A. Where they outplayed the Spanish for a 21-14 win, they lost to Fiji in extra-time after scores were level (19-19) at the end of normal time and for Soyizwapi, it will be a matter of expecting the expected, but to execute better.
“The teams know each other by now and tactically each one will be well aware of what the others bring to the game,” he said. “We still have some things up our sleeve, but so will the other teams, so we need to be strategic and better in our execution in order to be successful.”
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Some good attention to detail went into their training session and Soyizwapi is confident that they will come out on top.
They will have time to clear the heads on Thursday, when the players have the day to themselves.
“We will have a day off tomorrow and that down time will come in handy as we could go sightseeing a bit, but the mindset is pretty much on fixing what went wrong last time around. We messed up, so we need to fix that ourselves.”
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Soyizwapi will play in his 62nd World Series tournament and will equal the tally of Blitzboks coach, Philip Snyman. Branco du Preez remains the most experienced Springbok Sevens player, with 85 tournament appearances.
Blitzboks’ Pool A fixtures (SA times)
Saturday 7 February
5:58am: vs Spain
9:14am: vs Argentina
12:52pm: vs Fiji
Most Blitzboks tournament caps
85 – Branco du Preez
74 – Chris Dry
69 – Kyle Brown
68 – Frankie Horne
66 – Cecil Afrika
Most Blitzboks appearances in Australia
10 – Chris Dry
8 – Cecil Afrika
8 – Kyle Brown
8 – Frankie Horne
7 – Branco du Preez
Photo: David van der Sandt/Gallo Images
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