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Live blog: Sevens Challenger Series – day three
By Liam Heagney
RugbyPass is live from Stellenbosch for the third and final day of the second and final leg of the 2023 Challenger Series. Saturday’s schedule ended with the quarter-finals in both the women’s and men’s sections and after Sunday kicks off with some minor placing fixtures, the tournament will quickly get down to the more serious business of producing second-leg finalists.
Belgium and China will contest the first women’s semi at 9:54am local time, with hosts South Africa taking on Czechia at 10:16.
If the Belgians lose their match, the Springboks will go into their last-four encounter knowing that qualification for the second-leg final will be enough for them to secure the automatic promotion place up for grabs for next season’s World Rugby elite series.
South Africa topped the tournament points board with 20 following last weekend’s first-leg title win and they are now guaranteed a minimum of 14 this weekend after reaching the second-leg semi-finals. Runners-up Belgium have 18 from last weekend and third-place China 16 to go with their 14 minimum from this weekend.
While the aggregate 2023 Sevens Challenger Series women’s champion will gain automatic promotion to the soon-to-be revamped World Rugby Sevens, the prize is different in the men’s section as the aggregate winner over the two weekends will proceed to a four-team playoff next month in London against three current elite section teams.
That event in England will have a top-tier place for the winners and Tonga are currently the favourites to clinch the ticket to contest the playoff as they have followed up last weekend’s first-leg title success with progress to the second-leg semi-finals.
The Tongans have 20 points to Germany’s 18, Belgium’s 14 and Chile’s eight following the first leg and they go into Sunday’s action in South Africa knowing that a semi-final win over the Germans will book their place in London.
That match starts at 10:38 with the second semi-final featuring Belgium and Chile following at 11am.
- Follow all the live blog action below and click here for a live stream provided by the SA RU:
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Latest Comments
Yeah they're away of it too. It was brought up in one of the Italian focused articles. They are performing now and trying to move out of that 'being in awe' type attitude.
Very easy to say we're good enough to put all our focus on wining this last big game of the year (this one) though, you also need to be consistent and still perform in the other games (slip up against Georgia) and not get ahead of yourself. Not think you're too good for teams like Argentina and Georgia just because theres a shift in attitude towards thinking 'were good enough to beat anybody now'. Hope they go forward from here but I think this performance is still only good enough to keep them off wooden spoon 6N position (keep them well away from the bottom mind you).
Go to commentsYeah I predicted (out of thin air) it to be more like 30 points between them. You don't think it wasn't more like that because they picked jaded players?
Will have a look at the game now I guess.
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