{"id":93860,"date":"2025-12-06T15:31:39","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T15:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/blitzboks-aim-for-cape-town-comeback-after-dubai-struggles"},"modified":"2025-12-06T15:52:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T15:52:14","slug":"blitzboks-aim-for-cape-town-comeback-after-dubai-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/blitzboks-aim-for-cape-town-comeback-after-dubai-struggles","title":{"rendered":"Blitzboks Aim for Cape Town Comeback After Dubai Struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>The Blitzboks begin their push for back-to-back Cape Town Sevens titles when they open their Pool A campaign against Fiji at 12:44 pm on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The team arrives home after a difficult outing in Dubai, where two early losses left them under pressure despite a stronger finish on Day Two.<\/p>\n<p>De Koning says the new eight-team series format leaves &#8216;no easy games&#8217;, with no quarterfinals and only the top four sides progressing to the Cup round.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of expectation on them always. Everybody thinks it&#8217;s their home tournament. They should easily win it. The whole problem is that the whole system has changed. Previously, you had plenty of teams. You had 16 teams. Now you&#8217;ve only got eight teams, which means there&#8217;s no quarterfinals. There are no second chances. If you lose, you&#8217;re virtually guaranteed that you&#8217;re not going to make the playoffs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Drawn alongside Fiji, New Zealand and Great Britain, South Africa face a tough pool, with Fiji and New Zealand long-established forces in the shortened format.<\/p>\n<p>Despite their rocky start, De Koning believes the Blitzboks can still build toward the overall series title, pointing to last season when they struggled early but clinched the decisive final round to finish as world champions.<\/p>\n<p>Consistency, he says, will be key as they chase points through the season.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">South-Africa<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. The Blitzboks begin their push for back-to-back Cape Town Sevens titles when they open their Pool A campaign against Fiji at 12:44 pm on Saturday. The team arrives home after a difficult outing in Dubai, where two early losses left them under pressure despite a stronger finish on Day Two. De Koning [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":93859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-93860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Blitzboks Aim for Cape Town Comeback After Dubai Struggles - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Blitzboks begin their push for back-to-back Cape Town Sevens titles when they open their Pool A campaign against Fij ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/blitzboks-aim-for-cape-town-comeback-after-dubai-struggles\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Blitzboks Aim for Cape Town Comeback After Dubai Struggles\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Blitzboks begin their push for back-to-back Cape Town Sevens titles when they open their Pool A campaign against Fij ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/blitzboks-aim-for-cape-town-comeback-after-dubai-struggles\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-12-06T15:31:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-06T15:52:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2025\/12\/sm_1765023690.052523.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/blitzboks-aim-for-cape-town-comeback-after-dubai-struggles#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/blitzboks-aim-for-cape-town-comeback-after-dubai-struggles\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Blitzboks Aim for Cape Town Comeback After Dubai Struggles\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-12-06T15:31:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-06T15:52:14+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/blitzboks-aim-for-cape-town-comeback-after-dubai-struggles\"},\"wordCount\":244,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/blitzboks-aim-for-cape-town-comeback-after-dubai-struggles#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2025\/12\/sm_1765023690.052523.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/blitzboks-aim-for-cape-town-comeback-after-dubai-struggles#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/blitzboks-aim-for-cape-town-comeback-after-dubai-struggles\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/blitzboks-aim-for-cape-town-comeback-after-dubai-struggles\",\"name\":\"Blitzboks Aim for Cape Town Comeback After Dubai Struggles - 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