1
Five-try Nadine Roos fires Springboks into Challenger quarter-finals
By Liam Heagney
Nadine Roos demonstrated her class on day two of the Sevens Challenger Series in Stellenbosh, scoring five tries as the Springboks hammered Thailand 38-0 to secure a quarter-final later on Saturday versus Colombia.
The soon-to-be 27-year-old spoke at length in midweek to RugbyPass about the need for tournament hosts South Africa to be on their guard as they had a target on their backs going into the second weekend of the 2023 qualifier having been crowed first-leg champions last Saturday.
Roos more than played her part in ensuring that South Africa progressed comfortably to the knockout stages as Pool D winners, scoring four-half tries and then adding a fifth for good measure in the second half of their final pool match.
Automatic qualification for next season’s revamped World Rugby Series is the overall prize up for grabs across the two weekends of Challenger action and the fancied Springboks are now within touching distance of achieving promotion to the elite of the women’s sevens game.
They head into their quarter-final knowing that a win over Colombia will secure a semi-final on Sunday versus the winners of Czechia and Poland. In the other half of the draw, the winners of Belgium-Hong Kong China and China-Paraguay will battle it out.
In the men’s section, first-weekend title winners Tonga bounced back from their last-gasp loss to Chile on Friday by beating Italy 49-21 to secure a quarter-final versus Hong Kong China.
The winners of that tie will take on either Germany or Italy in Sunday’s semi-final. On the other side of the draw the winners of the Uganda-Belgium and Chile-Papua New Guinea quarter-finals are set to clash.
The overall men’s series champions, a title that will also be decided on the aggregate placings across both Challenger Series weekends, will go forward into a four-team qualifier in London next month where a promotion place into next season’s revamped elite World Series will be at stake.
Trending on RugbyPass
2
All Blacks XV player ratings vs Munster
3
Suaalii strikes awe as Wallabies lose midfielder
4
Scott Robertson responds about handling errors
5
Latest Comments
I think we need to get innovative with the new laws.
Now red cards are only 20 minutes, Razor should send Finau on a head hunting mission to hospitalise their 10 with a shoulder to the chops.
Give the conspiracy theorists a win.
Go to commentsEngland played well enough to win but couldnt score when they needed to and couldnt defend a couple of X-Factor moments from Telea which was ultimately the difference. They needed to hold the ball more and make the AB's make more tackles. Territorially they were good for the first 60. Defending their lead and playing pragmatic rugby in the last 20 was silly. The AB's always had the potential to come back. England still have a long way to go, definite progress would have been shown had they won but it seems they are still stuck where they were shortly after the six nations and their tour to NZ
Go to comments