Ireland knock Blitzboks out of their own World Cup

Ireland applied the pressure that forced the Blitzbok mistakes that saw the hosts bundled unceremoniously out of the Rugby Sevens World Cup at a shell-shocked Cape Town Stadium on Saturday night.

Bidding for their first ever World Cup trophy in the Sevens format, the South Africans went into the tournament with high hopes.

But there were also expectations that might have impacted on the team as the Blitzboks looked well below par on their way to a shock 10-point defeat (24-14) at the hands of Ireland, who only a few months ago notched their first ever Sevens win against South Africa.

Although it was Ireland that made the first mistake as Mark Roche overcooked his kick-off, the Blitzboks were passive as they surrendered the ball and the momentum as Ireland went through several phases from inside their own 22 before Roche atoned for his mistake by going over near the posts as space was created down middle for him.

Roche converted to put his team ahead 7-0 and you could almost sense the nervousness ratcheting up for the Blitzboks when they found themselves behind, and because of that the mistakes followed.

Indeed, the next mistake came almost immediately as a ball was tapped back over their own line and so nearly led to another Irish try that would have put them even further ahead.

WILD PASS SUMS UP THE SA NIGHT

Fortunately for the Blitzboks, the TMO ruled that there had been an early tackle from one of the Irish players, but it was a close run thing and it was clear the hosts were under pressure as they looked to deliver in front a large and supportive crowd.

That pressure was advertised when the South Africans had looked like they had created themselves a perfect try- scoring opportunity only for Ronald Brown to throw a wild pass over the defenders outside him into touch.

Shortly after that a mistake on attack led to an Ireland defensive penalty, but the Blitzboks finally got it together when JC Pretorius put in a strong run before the ball was spun to the right and the visitors just ran out of defenders and Muller du Plessis dotted down. Brown’s conversion tied the scores at 7-all at the break.

The Blitzboks desperately needed to be the first to score after the break to settle the nerves, but they couldn’t control their own lineout ball and Harry McNulty went over to put his team back into the lead.

If that felt like a crisis was pending for the Blitzboks, the feared crisis arrived when Jordan Conroy capitalised on a very out of character mistake from JC Pretorius by going in for a try that put his team 12 points ahead.

What a performance from @IrishRugby!

They're into the #RWC7s semi-finals for the first time since 1993 with a comprehensive win over hosts South Africa#HereToSevens pic.twitter.com/LPt3Hh0Yqz
— Rugby World Cup 7s 2022 (@WorldRugby7s) September 10, 2022

From there it was hard to see Ireland losing, particularly as their defensive system was well organised and aggressive and was forcing the Blitzboks into repeated uncharacteristic errors.

The Blitzboks were put out of their misery when Conroy ran in a second try and that swept Ireland into a seven point lead, with a late try to the Blitzboks being nothing more than a consolation.

IRISH CLASH WITH ALL BLACKS NEXT

It was a deserved win by Ireland who built further on what they had learned when the beat the Blitzboks for the first time in their history in the World Sevens Series event in Toulouse earlier this year.

The Irish had played the South Africans three times at World Cups before tonight without winning any of those games.

That meant the world to Jordan Conroy

?? @IrishRugby #RWC7s | #HereToSevens pic.twitter.com/tpaf59oAZl
— Rugby World Cup 7s 2022 (@WorldRugby7s) September 10, 2022

Ireland advance to a semifinal meeting with New Zealand, who booked their place with a hard-fought 12-5 win over Argentina while the other big performing team in the world sevens game, Fiji, overcame some early scares against Samoa to win by 11 points.

Australia had to work hard to beat France as the tournament goes into the final day with the host nation no longer participating in either the men or women’s Championship events.

The Blitzboks will play Argentina in a fifth/eighth place playoff game at 11:02am on Sunday.

ROOS TO THE FORE FOR WOMEN

The South African women’s team enjoyed a mixed day that would have considerably brightened by their comprehensive 27-0 win over Colombia in their second game.

They were less fortunate in their opening match of day two, going down by just two points to Japan, but their victory against Colombia takes them into a 13th place playoff game against Chile on Sunday afternoon.

Nadine Roos fronted the charge for the host nation team, crossed for four of the five South African tries to record one of the outstanding individual performances of the tournament so far. Roos also scored a try in the loss to Japan, thus underlining her value to the team.

But Roos didn’t operate on her own and was helped by a great team effort, with defensive pressure often forcing the Colombians into mistakes on which the South Africans capitalised to make the scoreboard tick over.

“We are happy as a team with this game and it shows how great we can be if we just implement the game plan and everything the coaches are telling us to do,” said co-captain Sizophila Solontsi

“Kudos to our coaches for allowing us to feel what we were feeling after the Japan loss, and to then pick ourselves up as a team. So, what we did was stick together, talk about it, talk about what went wrong and how we could fix that and focus more on what we can do great.”

MEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP QUARTERFINAL RESULTS

New Zealand 12 Argentina 5

Australia 14 France 5

Fiji 21 Samoa 10

SA 14 Ireland 24

WOMEN QUARTERFINAL RESULTS

Australia 35 England 5

New Zealand 28 Ireland 0

France 19 Fiji 14

USA 10 Canada 7

SA WOMEN

Japan 14 SA 12