Blitzboks comfortably book quarterfinal meeting with Ireland

The Blitzboks will face a pressure quarterfinal meeting with giant-killers Ireland in the quarterfinal match that will bring to the end Saturday’s play in the Rugby World Cup Sevens at Cape Town Stadium.

Ireland were surprise advancers to the last eight when they shocked England in one of the early group of 16 matches on day one, while the Blitzboks predictably hardly raised a sweat in outplaying Chile 32-5 in the game that brought play on the opening day to an end.

Playing in front of a large, appreciative and festive crowd that fully embraced the proper arrival of spring in the Cape, the Blitzboks were off the mark quickly against Chile, who got to this point by beating Germany early in their pre-16 match earlier in the day.

The Blitzboks were on the board almost from the off, with Angelo Davids jetting in after namesake Selwyn Davids had pounced on a loose ball from the kick off. And then almost off the next move, Sako Makota was over in the right corner after running onto a well-placed cross kick from Ronald Brown. At 10-0, the Blitzboks were already looking comfortable.

And they became more comfortable almost immediately after that as Christie Grobbelaar went over in the right corner after capitalising on his own good kick-off for Selwyn Davids to land the only conversion the Blitzboks managed to kick in the game. In mitigation, all the tries were scored in the corner.

Chile captain Joaquin Huici capitalised on the one period of positive play from his team by going over for a good try on the stroke of halftime to make it 17-5 to the tournament hosts.

In the second half Ronald Brown, Mfundo Ndhlovu and Angelo Davids took turns in outstripping the Chilean defence to complete a comfortable win.

It was an adequate performance in a game they were expected to win, but maybe not as clinical as they would like to have been.

For instance at one stage they gave away four penalties in succession and in tighter games that could be costly. And after watching Ireland trump England they will know that they will have to be at their best to make sure that they are still in the running for the World Cup itself going into finals day on Sunday.

The Ireland win was the main shock of the round of 16, although Samoa’s comfortable win over the USA also registered.

Among the favourites for title honours, Fiji were impressive in dispatching Wales 29-5 while New Zealand were even more comfortable victors against Scotland.

As expected, the South African women’s team, playing the penultimate match of the day in what was effectively a curtain-raiser for the Blitzbok game, were no match for France and were knocked out of the tournament, with the final score being 29-0.

The South African team will now play Japan as they look to battle for success in the race for minor placings

The action will heat up on day two but the opening day was a good appetiser for what is to come with the crowd enjoying the rugby as well as the fanfare that went around it, both within the stadium itself and on the concourse around the venue where the beer gardens and food stalls did a roaring trade.

GROUP OF 16 MEN'S RESULTS

England 5 Ireland 17

France 19 Canada 12

USA 12 Samoa 40

New Zealand 43 Scotland 5

Argentina 22 Kenya 7

Australia 35 Uruguay 0

Fiji 29 Wales 5

South Africa 32 Chile 5

SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN

France 29 South Africa 0

MEN'S QUARTERFINALS SCHEDULED FOR SATURDAY

New Zealand v Argentina 7:35pm

France v Argentina 8:35pm

Samoa v Fiji 9:35pm

South Africa v Ireland 10:33pm

WOMEN'S QUARTERFINALS SCHEDULED FOR SATURDAY

Australia v England 7:07pm

New Zealand v Ireland 8:35pm

France v Fiji 9:05pm

USA v Canada 10:05pm

SA WOMEN

SA v Japan at 10:37am