LONDON – The Blitzboks ran in five second half tries without reply as they beat Canada 45-14 in their second Pool A match at the HSBC World Rugby Sevens in London, England, on Saturday afternoon.
Following their 49-0 thrashing of Japan in their opening pool fixture earlier in the day, the Blitzboks got off to another good start with Werner Kok breaching the Canadian defence as early as the second minute. Branco du Preez's conversion put the South Africans 7-0 ahead.
However, Canada found some space to play in and Matt Mullins punished the men in green in scoring a five-pointer two minutes later. Nathan Hirayama added the conversion for the men from Toronto.
Kurt-Lee Arendse, the two-try hero of the first match, showed his eagerness in the fifth minute as he turned on the speed to score his team's second try of the match, with Du Preez adding the conversion.
The Canadians showed character and produced some superb handling skills before the break, with Luke McClosky rounding off, and the conversion by Hirayama which sent the sides into the interval tied at 14-14.
There are very few sevens games where Siviwe Soyizwapi does not get on to the scoresheet for the Blitzboks, and this was not going to be one of them. The ever-consistent South African powered his way over the Canadian whitewash in the opening minute of the second half to put the Africans 19-14 ahead.
Any hopes the Canadians had of finding the equalising points were dented when Werner Kok and JC Pretorius scored tries for the South Africans within the space of two minutes to see the scoreline grow to 31-14.
In attempting to get back into the match, the Canadians began to miss crucial tackles and their limited ball possession ended up with several handling errors being made.
SA benefited from the mistakes made by their opponents with Impi Visser and Davids running in further tries, to see the Blitzboks outscore their opponents by seven tries to two at the final whistle.
SA will play their final Pool A match against Argentina later on Saturday.