“New Zealand have been dumped out of the semifinals at the Los Angeles Sevens after a precision display of knockout footy from .” - Stuff magazine, New Zealand.

Volume 20, Number 6 06 March 2020

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Blitzboks Bounce Back With a Vengeance

After two disappointing legs of the HSBC World But the draw secured top spot in the pool and set up a Rugby Sevens Series in Australasia a few weeks back quarter-final against the host nation, USA. The home back, ’s men arrived in Los Angeles last team put Blitzboks on the back foot early with two week with a point to prove. And prove it they did. tries from speedster Carlin Isles, giving the hosts a 10- 0 lead. But South Africa reduced the score to 10-5 at Thrice, against Ireland in the pools, USA in the half-time courtesy of a try from Ryan Oosthuizen. quarters and in the final against Fiji, they clawed their way back into the game and the tournament. It was a Blitzboks piled on the pressure in the second stanza, fantastic performance. and despite some resolute American defence, finally broke through when JC Pretorius barged over under Blitzboks opened their account in LA with a solid the posts just before full-time. Final score 12-10. victory over Kenya (31-5). It was sweet revenge for the shoe being on the other foot in Hamilton the last Next up it was New Zealand in the semi-finals and we time the two sides met. They followed this with an must hand over to Stuff magazine in New Zealand to assured 33-5 defeat of Canada. describe that for you: “New Zealand have been dumped out of the semifinals at the Los Angeles But, as suggested above, the wheels almost came off in Sevens after a precision display of knockout footy the third and final pool game against Ireland. Blitzboks from South Africa.” fell behind twice and fought back to level the scores – the second time was after the hooter. It was tight and if Yup. The final score, in case you missed it, was 17-0, the Irish had held on to the ball for a few more seconds which set up the final against Fiji. And what a final. before kicking it out, they could have won. Blitzboks scored twice in the last minute to first force extra time and then claim a sudden death try winner to beat Fiji (29-24) for the title, and, in so doing, closing to within four log points of series leaders New Zealand.

LA was the seventh tournament of the 2020 series with only three rounds left before attention turns to the Olympics in Japan – Coronavirus permitting. This weekend it’s Vancouver (see our preview on page two).

KEY TOPICS IN THIS NEWSLETTER

Confident Blitzboks Head to Vancouver Varsity Cup is Much Better Without Noise Another Miserable Weekend Too Many Stars Are Fleeing Super Rugby PRO14: , Kings Still Struggling Is Doping a Problem in Schoolboy Rugby?

Page 1 Confident Blitzboks Head to Vancouver Another Miserable Super Rugby Weekend

It’s the eighth tournament in the HSBC World Rugby Can you believe it? Four South African teams played Sevens Series 2019/2020 and it takes place in Super Rugby last weekend and the only one to come Vancouver, where Blitzboks are reigning champions, away with a win was the one that we strongly believe having beaten France in the final last year. Could they shouldn’t even be in the competition. Typical. sweep up two titles on the trot? Possibly, but it will be Bloody typical. tough. But then, it was another weekend of upsets – caused They have been drawn in Pool A alongside Argentina, largely by the abysmal standard of refereeing. That’s England and Japan but they face them in a different a subject for another day as we let the evidence pile order: On Saturday night they will play Japan (20:06), up like it is doing at the State Capture Commission. then Argentina (23:18) and, early Sunday morning our time, they’ll take on the whingers (02:30).

As we noted on the first page, Blitzboks now lie second on the series log, only four points behind New Zealand and if they can get the American double by winning in Vancouver in the early hours of Monday morning, they could jump to the top of the standings – but only if New Zealand don’t finish second. The weekend began with two shocks on Friday: As it stands currently, and after seven rounds of the Rebels travelled to Dunedin to face Highlanders and series completed, the kiwis are top of the log on 93 managed to come away with a win (22-28); and points and Blitzboks are second on 89 points. Next Lions visited Parramatta (about half-a-hour out of best is last year’s champion team, Fiji, on 72 points. Sydney) only to be robbed by Waratahs (29-17). The title race is therefore really between New Zealand and South Africa but with three tournaments to play, Saturday morning dawned with a return to normality, Fiji could well get back into the mix. albeit briefly, as Hurricanes blew away (62-15) in Napier. But then the upsets were back as The islanders did win both London and Paris last year inexplicably beat Reds (23-33) in Brisbane. – and those are the two legs to come after this weekend. But if they don’t close the gap on both of the But perhaps upset wasn’t quite the right word for two front runners this weekend, they’ll probably leave what happened at Newlands on Saturday afternoon themselves with a bit too much to do. when Blues arrived from Auckland. The home team could simply not get into the game and were And if both Fiji and New Zealand win their pools in absolutely awful – more so than usual according to Vancouver, they’ll potentially meet in the semifinal. our highly partisan editor. In the end, the visitors ran South Africa, meanwhile, is on the other side of the out 14-33 victors. draw. It’s going to be interesting. The final match of the weekend was at Loftus in where the visiting Jaguares simply out- played their opposition (24-39). The win was helped by a team still intent on playing a domkrag style of rugby and, if that persists, we have a feeling that it will be a long season for the men from Pretoria.

But there was some good news that might help the Bulls’ cause: World Cup-winning eighthman, , will be rejoining the side in June after his contract with Kubota Spears ends.

Page 2 Page 3 PRO14: Cheetahs, Kings Still Struggling Varsity Cup is Much Better Without Noise

This past weekend also saw a smattering of PRO14 One of our constant criticisms of FNB Varsity Cup fixtures but, as usual, we’ll just focus in on the two rugby over the years has been the noise in the stadia local teams. The first of them to take the field was that made it very difficult to stay focused on the Cheetahs, visiting Dragons in Newport (Wales). brilliant rugby being played. It got so bad last year that we watched with the sound muted. The first thing to know about the match was that the conditions were typically atrocious (for this time of year in Wales) and did not favour running rugby. Even so, the visitors struck first inside ten minutes through a Junior Pokomela try.

That was followed several minutes later with a penalty kick that stretched the lead to 0-10. It took the Welsh side until the 41st minute to get on the board courtesy of a Sam Davies penalty.

That was followed by a try about fifteen minutes later that levelled the scores at 10-10. But well after the final hooter, Davies broke Cheetahs hearts with another successful penalty kick. Final score 13-10. Thankfully, we don’t have to do that any longer and On Sunday afternoon, hosted we watched the televised match on Monday without Connacht in and were 0-14 down well having to mute it once during the game. [The inside the first ten minutes. qualification is because we did mute it for the beauty queen interviews - Ed] The referee gave the home team a lifeline by reducing the Irish side to 14 men via a red card after 15 minutes. It was the derby as University of Free Then minutes later, Connacht were down to 13 as Kyle State hosted neighbours Central University of Godwin served out his yellow card. Technology and it was a fantastic game with a tight first half that ended 14-19 in favour of the visitors. Kings took full advantage and levelled the scores at 14- all before Godwin retook the field. But the Irish would But the territory-based game plan chosen by CUT paid not be denied and when all was said and done – off big time in the second half, beginning with a point including two more yellow cards, one for each team – of origin try that stretched the lead out by a further the final score was 19-29. nine points. There was no way back for Shimlas and everything they tried in the half just went pear-shaped. It was fighting performance but yet another Final score: 14-35. disappointing loss for the local team. Elsewhere, it was a top-of-the-table clash between Maties and Tuks down in Stellenbosch and although Maties came out on top of a close-fought battle (13-7) Tuks retained their position on top of the log due to Maties having had their bye early in the season.

Meanwhile, in Potchefstroom, NWU was facing UJ and they extended the teams winless streak by triumphing 19-6. And in , UCT and Wits played to a 10-all draw, allowing both teams to retain their unbeaten status – for now at least.

Page 4 Page 5 Too Many Stars Are Fleeing Super Rugby And Now for Something Completely Different

Our interest was piqued last week when we spotted a We picked up the report first on Rugby365.com Tweet by Sport24 chief writer, Rob Houwing, in where Jan de Koning reported on the impact on which he asserted that the Super Rugby tournament is Super Rugby of Japan cancelling all sporting events in trouble. But let’s rather let Rob speak for himself for the next two weeks in order to try to prevent (or since he does do it pretty well: limit) the spread of the Coronavirus.

“I was able to pick below TWO full sides of quality As a result, he writes that while Sunwolves fans players, all under 30, who quit Super Rugby ahead of might feel short-changed, the relocation of two of 2020 season...demonstrating one of the tourney's their team’s games has left us with an unexpected biggest problems.” spin-off:

Quite. And it’s not a new phenomenon. The staunch “The Sunwolves versus Brumbies match is now Lions supporters in this newsroom remember all to played at the ‘neutral’ venue of Wollongong in well the destruction wrought when former coach Johan Sydney, prior to the Waratahs versus match – Ackermann packed for Gloucester and took a lot of leaving us with a unique doubleheader.” our talent with him. But we digress. Unfortunately, there’s a scheduling cock-up that Houwing's article looks across the competition and he SANZAAR was unable to resolve with the TV writes: “Perhaps the best way to illustrate that point is networks. The first match will kick-off at 14.45 to pick a team...just from players who aren’t yet 30, (05:45 our time) but the people in the ground will but who bade farewell to the competition ahead of the have to wait until 19:15 (10:15 our time) for the 2020 version.” Here’s his team: second match: Waratahs vs Chiefs.

15: Melani Nanai (age 26) Presumably, the stadium will play the Crusaders vs 14: Waisake Naholo (28) Reds match (which happens in between) on the big 13: (26) screen. That will theoretically make it a triple-header 12: (28) but we’ll see if it manages to draw a bigger crowd to 11: Nehe Milner-Skudder (29) Wollongong. 10: Handre Pollard (25) 9: Yutaka Nagare (27) Next week, the scheduling will be better. Sunwolves 8: Liam Squire (28) vs Crusaders will now be played prior to the Reds 7: Pablo Matera (26) versus Bulls match in Brisbane. Again, the size of the 6: (26) crowd will be interesting. 5: (28) 4: (28) “While the Blues versus Lions match is still 3: Jeff Toomaga-Allen (29) scheduled for Eden Park next Saturday (March 14), 2: (25) the kick-off time has been changed from 19.05 local 1: Santiago Garcia Botta (27) time to 16.25 local time (to accommodate the scheduling of the Sunwolves versus Crusaders match).”

It could be a very interesting weekend of Super Rugby, and not necessarily for the usual reasons: the quality of the rugby or the abysmal standard of refereeing. You can find de Koning’s preview of today’s matches here and he’ll probably post his preview of Saturday’s matches sometime later today. And you can see the schedule on page eight.

Page 6 Is Doping a Problem in Schoolboy Rugby?

There’s a piece running on BBC Sport this week about “Three players tested positive at the 2017 event, an alleged epidemic of steroid use in South Africa’s four in 2016, five in 2015 and three in 2014. All for schoolboy rugby. Written by Mike Henson, it tries to steroids.” create the impression that our schools and coaches are complicit in the promotion of steroid use. Right. What he doesn’t tell you is that typically has 20 teams in action every year. But it all falls apart when you read the detail. The Assuming 23 players per team, that’s 460 players, article tries to suggest that the annual Craven Week meaning that it’s a tiny percentage that have been youth tournament is at the centre of it all but then caught doping. The fact is that the players are Henson undermines his own argument by reporting: tested. That’s not the case elsewhere in the world.

“Flick to page 40 of the South African Institute of Indeed, as Mark O'Beirne responds to the article on Drug-Free Sport's (Saids) latest annual report and Twitter: 'Name redacted (minor)' appears six times in the annual list of doping offenders. “Interesting article, but would be hard to believe that it's only happening in SA. Just it's being caught “All were teenage rugby players who tested positive there and subject to lots of testing. Ireland doesn't for steroids at the 2018 edition of Craven Week. It was test schools rugby. The England figures mentioned no blip. The event has turned into one of the most in article don't specify age brackets.” reliable hunting grounds for anti-doping officers. But again, we digress. Henson also tries to besmirch the good names of some Springbok players. His story centres around Salmon van Huyssteen, a teenager who was caught at the 2018 Craven Week and banned for two years, so he features the Bulls under-18 team of that year, which included RG Snyman and .

The whole thing strikes us as a transparent attempt to take the gloss off the comprehensive Springbok win at the 2019 World Cup. So, our response to Mike Henson? 32-12. Suck it up you bloody whinger.

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For Your Weekend Rugby Viewing Pleasure

Wow. We’re still on a high after last weekend’s win by Blitzboks – and hoping for a repeat performance in Vancouver this week. So there’s that, the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series on your box this weekend. And there’s also Super Rugby (see schedule alongside).

Over in Europe, the Six Nations and Rugby Europe tournaments are back after a one-week break – both competitions have two rounds left unless we’re very much mistaken. There’s only one PRO14 fixture this weekend: Dragons vs Benetton in Newport, Wales. But there is PRO D2 action in France and some Premiership matches in England.

Further afield, MLR continues around America while is on a break. And on Monday, the FNB Varsity Cup in on with all games kicking off at 7pm. The televised match this week is Maties vs Ikeys from Stellenbosch.

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