Blitzbokke shut out England to claim third spot in Hong Kong
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Branco du Preez of South Africa gets his pass away in the nick of time.
South Africa beat England 28-0 on Sunday to claim third place at the Hong Kong Sevens and to consolidate their third place on the HSBC Sevens World Series log.
The Blitzbokke earned 17 valuable points, which increased their tally for the season to 93 points. Despite their loss of 35-28 to Fiji in the Cup final, New Zealand still lead the standings on 111 points and they are closely followed by Fiji on 109.
The final was superbly handled by South African referee Rasta Rashivhenge. The next tournament starts on Saturday in Tokyo.
Meanwhile, South Africa will continue to monitor the injuries suffered by Cecil Afrika and Paul Delport. Afrika hurt his knee in the Cup quarterfinal victory over Samoa and played no part in the following two matches. Delport also injured his knee and had to leave the field against England.
“Cecil underwent a sonar scan at the stadium and fortunately the damage is not too severe. He and Paul will hopefully be ready to play for us next weekend in Japan,” explained SA Sevens coach, Paul Treu.
Stephan Dippenaar got the Blitzbokke on the scoreboard against England and they doubled their lead on the stroke of halftime when substitute William Small-Smith, on for the injured Delport, scored under the posts.
Cornal Hendricks scored his fifth try of the tournament after the break when he collected a clever kick by Chris Dry. Branco du Preez then capped a good all-round performance with his 30th World Series try just before the final siren.
South Africa started the day well when they proved too strong for the formidable Samoa, beating them 27-14 to book their place in the last four of the Cup competition.
However, this victory came at a huge cost when star playmaker Afrika was ruled out of the semi-final with New Zealand because of injury. Hendricks (2), Du Preez, Boom Prinsloo and Dippenaar all scored tries for the Blitzbokke against the 2012 USA champions.
In the important semi-final encounter, New Zealand won 19-12. It was however a much better performance from the Blitzbokke than a day earlier, when the Kiwis beat them 19-10 in their final pool fixture.
The final results on Sunday in Hong Kong:
Cup Final
Fiji 35, New Zealand 28
Cup Third Place playoff
South Africa 28, England 0
Plate Final
Samoa 12, Argentina 10
Bowl Final
Kenya 14, United States 12
Qualifier Final
Canada 22, Spain 5
Qualifier Third Place
Portugal 33, Japan 19
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