We witnessed a rare sight at the Westpac Stadium on Sunday – Seabelo Senatla being “burned”, as he described it.
Senatla rushed up to close down Fiji’s space in the Wellington Sevens final, but was quick enough to retreat and shadow Joeli Lutumailagi towards the touchline.
The Blitzbok No 11 didn’t reckon that the Fijian No 11 would be able to trouble him in the pace stakes, but Lutumailagi put the foot down in the 15 metres of space to outstrip Senatla on the outside and score a brilliant try.
But that didn’t get the World Sevens Player of the Year down. He responded by scoring his 180th try in the World Series – breaking Fabian Juries’ South African record – and putting himself about.
In one passage of play, he made two tackles within seconds, and he set up Rosko Specman’s try with an incredible burst of speed to skin his opponent on the outside, and make the offload to Justin Geduld for Specman to dart over.
And to round things off, Senatla created the last try of the game when he danced around a few Fijians before offloading to Ruhan Nel, who had an easy run-in.
“When I went over the line, I was so focused on the task at hand – I was thinking that we need to score again. But I thought about it, ‘Wow, this is 180’. When I sit down again, I will understand how much it means to me and the team,” he said about the record.
“I will never forget this moment – getting the winning try for the all-time record in South Africa is something special. What a way to do it, in the final, especially in New Zealand where we haven’t won for 15 years.
🎯 180 🎯 @seabelo_senatla breaks the @Blitzboks try-scoring record, getting his 180th in the final of the #WellySevens pic.twitter.com/3HBmQS1ykP
— World Rugby Sevens (@WorldRugby7s) January 29, 2017
“I think I had a little bit of adversity at the beginning, where I got burned – which doesn’t happen very often! So I told myself to get back and working, it’s all about keeping calm, forgetting about what happened and starting again.”
That is the real contribution that Senatla makes to the Springbok Sevens. He is so much more than just a finisher out wide who benefits when “all the work is done on the inside”, as he likes to point out.
His breakdown skills are unbelievable too, especially for a man coming in at just 1.78m and 80kg. Senatla throws his body around like a loose forward, yet he is the supposed “quarterback” out wide who gets all the glory.
But to have broken the South African record at the age of just 23 – Senatla turns 24 on February 10 – proves what a phenomenal performer he has been. He made his debut at the Wellington Sevens in 2013, so it was fitting that he went past Juries on Sunday at the same tournament four years later.
He scored his 180 tries in 161 matches – an average of 5.59 points per game!
Being named as the best sevens player in the world late last year was just reward for another unbelievable season where he scored 66 tries in the World Series, and Senatla was also a stand-out at the Rio Olympics before a wrist injury ruled him out of the semi-final against Great Britain.
Next weekend’s Sydney Sevens will mark Senatla’s last tournament for a while as he will move on to the Stormers for Super Rugby. He said on Sunday that he will play sevens again in future, but has stated previously that he wants to make the 15-man Springbok team in 2017.
That shouldn’t be a problem, considering the disastrous 2016 Bok season, although he would want to make a major impact first for the Stormers. Let’s hope that coach Allister Coetzee doesn’t hesitate to bring him into the national set-up…
But for the moment, we can celebrate the sevens legend, Seabelo Mohanoe Senatla!