women
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Springbok Women’s Sevens head coach Cecil Afrika described his team’s sixth place finish at the Rugby Africa Women’s Sevens as a “mixed bag”.
Afrika led the ‘A’ team to Nairobi as he aimed to expand the player base available in the coming months.
Last season, the Springbok Women’s Sevens went from HSBC SVNS 3 all the way to the HSBC SVNS World Championship. They have already qualified for HSBC SVNS 2 next season.
Only four players selected to travel to Kenya had previous HSBC SVNS experience. This included the team captain, Vianca Boer, along with Jané Mulder, Shanidiné Bezuidenhout and Owami Mohuli.
“It was definitely a mixed bag of results,” Africa said. “The team achieved results within the expected results if you consider that this is their first experience at such a level.
“The ladies gained real-time experience in the tournament, which allowed them to better understand the demands of the game which are different from practice where you can bounce back if mistakes are made.”
This younger player certainly had talent in his ranks. Haylee Hardneck, Siphumelele Mdlalose and Tereské Kabuika-Ilunga played against USA Under-20 team earlier this year, while Isabella Nel and Kiera Bowker have only recently swapped other sports for rugby.
It was only one loss to Zambia on the opening day of the competition that derailed the Springbok Women’s title ambitions, after comfortable wins against Rwanda and Zimbabwe earlier in the day.
On the second day, the team lost 24-17 Uganda they defeated Mauritius 48–0 in the quarter-finals and were then defeated by Zambia 17–12 in the fifth-place final. Uganda ended up winning the HSBC SVNS 3 Qualifiers with a 33-0 win Tunisia in the final for first place.
“There’s been tremendous growth even though it’s not necessarily on the table,” Afrika said.
“Some players have really put their hands up for the wider training squad in the future and this was the perfect opportunity to recognize those players as we don’t have a lot of game time.
“The games we lost were pretty close and the games we won were pretty comfortable. All in all it was a positive weekend for us.”