Dubai: South Africa beat Olympic, World Series and Dubai’s defending champions Fiji 26-14 to win their fifth Dubai Rugby Sevens — their second in three years — at the Sevens Stadium on Saturday.
Tries from Cecil Afrika and Branco du Preez, with both converted by the latter, put the Springboks ahead before an Osea Kolinisau try and conversion left it 14-7 to South Africa at the break.
A Jerry Tuwai try and Kolinisau conversion put Fiji back in the run after the interval, but South Africa then pulled back ahead with tries from Chris Dry and Seabelo Senatla, the first of which was converted by Du Preez.
South Africa coach Neil Powell said: “It’s always going to be a tough game against Fiji, there will always be only one or tries in it, so after half-time when they got back in it, I was a little nervous.
“But the boys did well to hang on and score themselves so I’m very happy with the performance, it’s always tough against Fiji and I’m happy with the way the boys came through that final.”
South Africa had beaten Wales 36-5 in the semi-finals and New Zealand 40-0 in the quarters after having topped Group B with victories over Uganda 46-0, Scotland 21-5 and the USA 19-17.
Seabelo Senatla was the tournament’s top try scorer with 11 tries and in fact his last effort in the final enabled him to edge England’s Dan Norton, who scored 10, for the most tries tally.
“A lot of the credit has to go to my teammates, you should see how much space they created for me on the outside,” said Senatla.
“It’s such a pleasure for me as a finisher to play with guys who are so magical with the ball in hand, who can create space anywhere. It feels like heaven when I play with these guys.”
Fiji had got this far by beating England 31-12 in the semis and France 40-5 in the quarters after having topped Group A with victories over Canada 26-19, Wales 24-12 and Argentina 22-19.
Fiji coach Naca Cawanibuka said: “We entered the final with high hopes to actually win it but hats off to a very good South African team and congrats to them.
“Our boys worked hard but there were a few moments there where we didn’t stick to our guns with few things we’ve been working on especially in attack. “We panicked a bit with the ball when we shouldn’t have done and South Africa capitalised as they have done the whole weekend with all teams. So hats off to them, but we’ll go back, review, and hopefully come back stronger.”
South Africa are now one victory shy of the most wins record in Dubai, which is currently held by New Zealand on six.
Results
(Saturday’s matches)
Challenge Trophy quarter-finals
Argentina 31-14 Japan
Samoa 27-19 Uganda
Kenya 22-14 Canada
USA 40-0 Russia
Cup quarter-finals
Fiji 40-5 France
England 24-21 Scotland
Australia 12-21 Wales
South Africa 40-0 New Zealand
13th place semi-finals
Japan 19-26 Uganda
Canada 27-5 Russia
Challenge Trophy semi-finals
Argentina 10-12 Samoa
Kenya 19-21 USA
5th place semi-final
France 17-26 Scotland
Australia 20-12 New Zealand
Cup semi-finals
Fiji 31-12 England
Wales 5-36 South Africa
13th place play-off
Uganda 17-20 Canada
Challenge Trophy Final
Samoa 14-28 USA
5th place play-off
Scotland — Australia
Bronze medal match
England 38—10 Wales
Gold medal match
Fiji 14—26 South Africa
