Dubai: South Africa coach Neil Powell urged his players to forget their victory in the opening leg of the 10-stage HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series in Dubai on Saturday and start preparing for next week’s second leg at home in Cape Town.
The Springboks beat Olympic, World Series and Dubai defending champions Fiji 26-14 at the Sevens Stadium to claim their fifth Dubai title, which was also their second UAE win in three years.
But Powell was quick to gloss over the victory ahead of their return to Cape Town next week, where they have won the past three editions.
“This Dubai win gives us confidence, expectation and pressure for Cape Town all put together,” said Powell, who has been in charge of the squad since 2013.
“The key for us is to get this Dubai win out of our system and start all over again, close this door and then start building again for next week. “It’s good to get this momentum but we are going to have to start all over again when we start in Cape Town and it doesn’t start when the tournament starts on Saturday, it starts on Monday when we land back in South Africa and start our preparation.
“We are going to have to start back at zero, not the plus figures that the table suggests. It’s going to be important to get these guys back to zero.”
South Africa have finished second in the overall World Series standings for the past four years running and have only won the honour once before in 2009. But Powell said he hoped to buck that trend this year.
“We always contend for the series, we did last year and the year before, but unfortunately we’ve always just come up short, hopefully we can go all the way this season.
“There’s no World Cup, Commonwealth Games or Olympics this season, just the World Series and we haven’t had that in a while.”
South Africa won bronze at the Rio Olympics finishing third behind gold medallists Fiji and runners-up Great Britain.
Dubai top try scorer (with 11) Seabelo Senatla said it was great to draw first blood over Olympic and World Series holders Fiji, but insisted the victory didn’t make up for missing out in Rio and meant little for the future.
“It’s always nice to beat Fiji because when you match yourselves against the best you can see how far you are from overtaking them,” said Senatla.
“I don’t think anything can make up for Rio but we have to forget about that now. Nothing that happened last season is going to help us now. We need to start afresh and this is the best start for us.
“The Dubai win is incredibly important for momentum but the pressure and expectation is going to be huge on us going into Cape Town where we have won three times in a row.
“We just need to focus on ourselves. This is the one opportunity a year where we get to play in front of our family and friends and we want to make everyone proud. It’s going to be incredible and I’m looking forward to it.”
