By Mark Etheridge
The Blitzboks rugby sevens side will face United States in the Cup quarter-finals of the Hong Kong leg of World Rugby Sevens after they won their second match of the day, against Scotland, on Saturday.
After thrashing Russia 50-0 in their first game their defence once again stood firm to deny Scotland as they won 31-0.
That, after the halftime score was 14-0.
The Blitzboks looked to have scored first when Kwagga Smith went over but the referee failed to see what looked like a positive grounding. But it didn’t take long for the South Africans to score when they broke from the resultant five-metre scrum and Ruhan Nel ran a great angle to cross under the posts. A Justin Geduld conversion made it 7-0.
Scotland were then down to six men after a second neck-roll penalty and although they attempted to attack it was that man Nel again as he intercepted a pass and ran through to score for a seven-pointer.
Coach Neil Powell was at pains to emphasise discipline during the half-time chat and less than two minutes into the half it was Seabelo Senatla who scored his 46th try of the current campaign after a full line movement.
That made it 19-0 and with just under 90sec to play it was tournament debutant Siviwe Soyizwapi who crossed for his second try of the tournaments with an impressive dive after a clever kick through.
That put the Blitzboks 24 points to the good and with nine seconds to go their tenacity at the breakdown paid off again as three players held a Scottish player up and the ball was ripped away, spun away to the the flying Stephan Dippenaar and the Blitzboks had blasted to a 31-0 win and a 5.20am (SA time) date with United States on Sunday.