By Mark Etheridge
South Africa’s Blitzboks got their home leg of the HSBC Cape Town Sevens off to a winning start as they rolled over Russia to the tune of 40-5 at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday.
The Neil Powell-coached side have never gone down to Russia in 18 meetings and the score was very similar to the result between the two sides at last year’s tournament – 41-0 to the Boks.
The South Africans were up and running within 30 seconds of the whistle when Tim Agaba unleashed Seabelo Senatla down the left hand flank.
They doubled that score 90sec later when Branco du Preez went over after a quickly taken tap penalty by veteran playmaker Cecil Africa.
But the Russians refused to lie back, despite seeing only scraps of possession and halfway through first stanza it was Roman Roschin who showed his strength to good effect and stretching over the line.
But that was the last time the Russians bothered the scorers and two more quick tries by – who else? – Senatla saw the Boks go into halftime with a 26-0 lead.
The first half hat trick saw Senatla coming within one try of the 200-mark.
Expectations were that he’d reach that milestone in the second half but it wasn’t to be. Still, they added two tries as coach Powell introduced a raft of substitutions to keep his players fresh.
Aqaba scored the first after good work by Afrika created the gap for him to run into and then it was substitute Justin Geduld who showed good awareness to chip over the top and Rosko Specman took advantage of the good bounce to gather and fall over the try line.
Next up for the Blitzboks are France (4.10pm) and continental counterparts Kenya (7.56pm) in their other Pool A games of the day.
Picture of hat-trick hero Senatla in action against Russia courtesy of Ashley Vlotman/Getty Images