When he wore the green and gold for the Springbok Sevens the first time – on 28 January 2017 in Wellington, New Zealand – Zain Davids was the proudest man alive and on Friday, eight years later, he will again be on cloud nine when he runs out in his 50th HSBC SVNS tournament for the Blitzboks in Perth.
“Making my debut was still the greatest feeling as it was the first time I lived my dream of representing my country on the rugby field," the 27-year-old said from Perth, where the team will contest the third tournament of the 2025 season this weekend.
“This time, playing in my 50th, that feeling will be pretty close as on my debut as I never, ever thought it would be possible. And yet, here I am. The greatest joy will be that I am still enjoying every moment of it, that I am playing for such a great team with such a great bunch of guys.
“I love the reasons why I am still involved. I have the opportunity to play for my country, I play for my family and for our great supporters. And while enjoying it.”
Zain Davids will join an illustrious group of 10 Blitzboks who reached this mark and for the weekend's co-captain, it will be another feather in his cap, alongside winning World Series titles, as well as Commonwealth Games gold and Olympic Games bronze medals.
“The most important thing for me though will be to make sure I do my job and not drop my team,” he said.
“We have a clear objective this weekend and this is to keep on improving from the last tournament, which we won. The format is slightly different from the last time out in Cape Town, with quarterfinals back in play, but that does not change our mentality at all.
“We have come here to win. We want to go up a notch and improve on our effort from Cape Town.”
Davids will be joined by in the forwards by Ryan Oosthuizen and Siviwe Soyizwapi among others, with the duo also part of the 50+ club. On the other side of the coin, Zander Reynders will only be in his second event, after debuting in Cape Town.
“Zander will be okay – he can play the game, so we just need to make sure we use our experience to get him going,” said Davids. “The dynamics of the forwards does not really change because we have a new face as the rest of us have been there before. He will do well.”
Blitzboks with 50 or more world series tournaments:
85: Branco du Preez
74: Chris Dry
69: Kyle Brown
68: Frankie Horne
66: Cecil Afrika
62: Philip Snyman
60: Justin Geduld
55: Siviwe Soyizwapi
51: Ryan Oosthuizen, Werner Kok
Blitzboks’ Pool A fixtures:
Friday, 24 January (SA times)
08:23am: USA
1:52pm: Australia
Saturday 25 January
7:50am: Argentina