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South Africa intent on giving back to ‘special’ crowd at Cape Town SVNS
By Finn Morton
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.”
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The writer here ignores the fact that, following on from not taking the penalty kick, the All Blacks did manage to score a try a few minutes later. Not directly from the penalty awarded, but it is speculation to say that had they opted to take the koi they would have won. Even if they kicked it, which was no guarantee, they would still be trailing and would have had to start again at half-way.
Go to commentsI would be surprised if Sales Opoku Fordjour and Northampton’s Tommy Freeman are not in the team, Anthony Watson is also one that could go on the wing. One thing I must say is that the front 3 will get destroyed against a team like South Africa.
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