Africa-Press – South-Africa. The Blitzboks started their Sevens World Cup in commanding fashion on Friday night, overpowering Chile to claim a 32-5 victory in the round of 16 at Cape Town Stadium.
The unique knockout nature of the competition sees Ireland up next in the quarter-finals for the hosts, who are playing for the last time under outgoing, long-serving head coach Neil Powell.
That match takes place at 22:33 on Saturday.
The crowd at Cape Town Stadium was not full on day one – there are sellouts expected on both Saturday and Sunday – but it was still sizeable enough to be deafening at times.
The opening session of Friday saw sides playing round of 16 qualifiers, and Chile had booked their spot against the mighty South Africans with a nail-biting 15-12 win that came via an extra-time penalty.
The Blitzboks, though, were never going to slip up here.
They scored within the opening minute with a stunner from Angelo Davids, who executed a one-handed pick-up to finish off a kick ahead, before Sakoyisa Makata gathered a pin-point cross-kick from Ronald Brown.
A kick was the assist for the third try, too, as a rushing Chilean defence had no answer to Muller du Plessis’ nudge that sat up perfectly for Christie Grobbelaar, who made no mistake.
Selvyn Davids converted, giving the Blitzboks a 17-0 lead.
Chile used their first possession of substance to score on the stroke of half-time through Joaquin Huici completely against the run of play, and the 17-5 scoreline gave them just a glimmer of hope.
That hope was short-lived, though, and the Blitzboks had their fourth after countering a Chile scrum that resulted in Brown taking the gap and effectively putting the game to bed.
An impressive individual try from the stepping Mfundo Ndhlovu followed before Davids scored a second to knock home the final nail.
Earlier, the South African women’s side had the full support of the crowd but were simply not on France’s level.
There were isolated moments of excitement, but the match was over as a contest by half-time as France manufactured a 19-0 lead by then.
By the time they were done, the French had scored two more tries for a comfortable 29-0 win.
The South African women, meanwhile, will now play in the Challenge quarter-finals against Japan at 10:37 on Saturday.
Scorers:
SA 32 (17)
Tries: Angelo Davids (2), Sakoyisa Makata, Christie Grobbelaar, Ronald Brown
Conversion: Selvyn Davids
Chile 5 (5)
Try: Joaquin Huici
Men’s QF fixtures:
NZ v Argentina
SA v Ireland
France v Argentina
Samoa v Fiji
Women’s QF fixtures
Australia v England
USA v Canada
New Zealand v Ireland
France v Fiji
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