1
Live blog: Sevens Challenger Series – day one
By Liam Heagney
RugbyPass is live from Stellenbosch for the opening day of the second and final leg of the 2023 Sevens Challenger Series featuring 24 teams from 21 countries. South Africa women and Tonga men lifted the first-leg trophies last Saturday and they now go in search of repeat victories to secure the respective ultimate prizes up for grabs.
The aggregate winners of the 12-team women’s section will gain automatic promotion to next season’s revamped World Series circuit, while the men’s champions will go forward into a four-team qualifier in London next month looking for promotion to next season’s similarly revamped big show.
The Springboks defeated Belgium 17-10 in last weekend’s women’s final and they will now be in Pool D action twice on Friday at the famed Markotter rugby fields at Paul Roos Gymnasium on the banks of the Eerste river. They take on Paraguay at 11:44am local time and then round off their day against Madagascar at 2:46pm.
South African star Nadine Roos spoke at length with RugbyPass about how much promotion would mean to sevens in her country, believing it would greatly accelerate the interest among young girls to take up the sport.
In the men’s section, the Tongans last weekend had too much firepower in their final against Germany and they will look to build on that 26-14 victory with an 11:44am clash with Jamaica followed by a 2:46pm meeting with Chile.
The action kicks off at 9am with Poland taking on Hong Kong China and Czechia facing Colombia in the women's section. The first men's teams in action will be Uganda-Brazil and Belgium-Zimbabwe at 10:06am.
Follow all the live blog action below and click here for a live stream provided by the SA RU:
Trending on RugbyPass
2
Thomas du Toit on the Lions call that would leave him feeling 'weird'
3
New setback all but ends Immanuel Feyi-Waboso's Lions hopes
4
Six English, six Irish with Owen Farrell in: Bok legends pick Lions XV
5
Latest Comments
The Reds just didn’t seem to be gelling with McReight as captain. Something wasn’t quite right. McReight had a very quiet game against the Western Force. Uncharacteristically quiet.
McReight is a freak talent with exceptional skills that some of the Reds player may have been trying to follow whereas Wilson is more solid. Which is what the Reds need at the moment before they unleash.
Go to commentsWell Razor told us last year his main concern was momentum, that the new subs were introduced at a time when ones coming off had laid the right platform. Whatever that means it resulted in some late substitutions and multiple times were none were done at all.
It is the antithesis of the general idea of what subs are supposed to provide, bringing impact into the game.
A lot of his subs were very young, so along with making sure you’ve got the finally flurry out of your starter, there could be some merit to the idea. It was just done so late so often that it felt like Razor is paying zero attention to how difficult it is for sub to bring that immediate impact, and as we saw with Aumua, how being on the field for 20-25 minutes was needed before you could really settle in and play your best.
I feel the French are like that too (because theyre no names to me), but sure, it’s a lot different if its RG Snyman you’re bring on.
Also in relation to your quote, I also don’t think he appreciates the influence of numbers, either in total, or more importantly in my mind, in conjunction together. I can’t remember once where the entire front row might have come on together, as a more attune unit with each other (not that NZ has developed the same consistency in selection with SA has benefitted from).
Go to comments