Springbok Women qualify for Commonwealth Games after being crowned African Champions

Paul Delport led the Springboks Women™s Sevens team to a successful Africa Seven Cup tournament. South Africa narrowly beat Madagascar 15-14 to successfully defend their title. The victory has secured a place for the Springboks at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham later this year.

Delport says he is greatly impressed: œThe tournament all in all was a very good experience. I think obviously very up and down from the performance perspective but we achieved a lot of goals we set out to achieve we also gave the ladies some exposure at international level, and I must say with the level of the tournament I greatly impressed it™s definitely a massive improvement on the 2019 tournament, so great tournament well done to Africa for hosting it

Although the side glided throughout the group and knockout stages of the competition, the Springboks ladies mentor feels the team could have been more consistent in performance. However he remains impressed with his players fighting spirit against hosts, Tunisia in the semi-final of the competition.

After a two year break due to COVID-19, the Springboks calendar is a lot fuller this year as they focus their eyes on the HSBC Toulouse Sevens from May 20 to 22. It will be their first World Series tournament abroad since Dubai in 2018.

By Busisiwe Mokwena