Blitzboks seal World Championship win in Los Angeles after roller-coaster season

Daily Maverick

05-05-2025

The Springbok Sevens hit their straps in LA this weekend, sealing an undefeated weekend with a 19-5 win over Spain to claim the World Championship.
The Springboks Sevens side sealed a memorable World Championship win in Los Angeles this weekend after going through the previous two days undefeated before beating Spain 19-5 in the final.
It was a cagey final with a big defensive performance required from the Blitzboks to overcome the Spanish outfit. Tries from Selvyn Davids, Mfundo Ndhlovu and Ricardo Duarttee were enough to down the uncompromising Spaniards.
Despite the title of World Championship winners, Argentina are the SVNS World Series winners after finishing the regular season having won three of the six legs of the SVNS series and finishing on 104 overall points.
The Springbok Sevens finished the World Series in fourth place — having only won the Cape Town leg, ending on 70 points.
The top eight teams (out of 12) competed in the World Championship in Los Angeles, with the remaining four battling it out against Challenger series teams.
It is the second year that this convoluted SVNS system has been in place, with more changes to the system announced for next season.
South Africa headed to Los Angeles on the back of two ninth-place finishes, in Singapore and Hong Kong, but hit back in the most important tournament.
South Africa's victories in LA included beating Olympic champions France, Great Britain and high-flying Argentina in the group phase before whalloping old-foes New Zealand 31-5 in the semi-finals.
New Zealand beat Argentina 38-17 in the third-place playoff. If New Zealand had gone all the way and won the trophy in LA, they would have done so with a highest-place finish of fourth — in Dubai last year — across the World Series season.
While the new format — which will be revamped again next season — gives everyone a fair shot at the World Championship title, it doesn't reward consistency throughout the season.
Cagey affair
South Africa were on the defence for much of the initial period of the final before captain Davids danced past two defenders before jinking past another, all inside the Blitzboks' 22m, to run through and score the first points of the final and the only try in the first half.
Spain had the bulk of the possession, but South Africa's defence stood strong with Shilton van Wyk particularly impressive with several big tackles in succession.
The Spanish eventually found their way over the tryline when speedster Pol Pla jetted down the right wing to increase his scoring record for Spain but the conversion from out wide was unsuccessful. The Blitzboks held a slender lead heading into the final three-and-a-half minutes.
A trio of fresh legs took to the field right after for the Springbok Sevens. Tristan Leyds was one of them, who held on to a tricky hanging ball from Spain's restart.
Zander Reynders, the other, slung a bounce pass to Ndhlovu, the third substitute, one phase later, before Ndhlovu dodged his way past two on rushing Spanish defenders and sprinted all the way to score South Africa's second try.
Reynders saw yellow from the restart, taking out a Spanish player in the air from a well-weighted drop-kick to give the European outfit a sniff of a chance of victory in the final two minutes.
Instead, despite playing with one man down, South Africa worked the short side for consecutive phases and eventually broke through with Leyds offloading to Duarttee, who came on as a late substitute, to go over for the team's third try.
'Completes the puzzle'
This weekend was one of the few occasions this season where head coach Philip Snyman had access to his full compliment of star players, with no one missing through injury, rest or suspension.
'This team delivered an amazing performance over the weekend,' the coach said. 'The players deserve so much credit for the way they played here in Los Angeles. We had some good parts and some bad parts to our season, but this weekend we got it all together and that is a very satisfying feeling.
'Any coach will tell you that your plan can only be as good as the buy-in from the players, and then their execution thereof. This weekend it all came together.'
Despite the up-and-down season, Snyman believes the performances in Los Angeles were a true reflection of the potential of his squad.
'This performance finally completes the puzzle for us, and what a beautiful picture we got,' he said. 'This was the true colours of Springbok Sevens, and I cannot be prouder of what it represented and displayed this weekend.'
The Springbok Women's Sevens team, meanwhile, fell at the final hurdle in Los Angeles this week, losing 14-17 to Kenya in the play-off final for the second division of the World Series.
South Africa scraped their way through every match this past weekend on their way to the final, only losing to China (26-12). This included a spirited fightback against Argentina in which they claimed a 17-14 win after a last-minute try by Leigh Fortuin.
But Kenya were too strong for the Seven's Women's team in the final with South Africa finishing the match with a player down. DM