Cape Town - The Sevens Challenger Series will sure be, well, a challenge, but the Springbok women's Sevens squad is choosing to approach it as an opportunity.
The South Africans will take on China, Kenya and Chile in Santiago's Estadio Santa Laura this weekend in a qualification tournament to secure a spot in the World Sevens Series.
Liske Lategan, who was named captain for the trip to Chile, says they need no reminding of the strong green flavour in their squad. But by no means are they seeing their injection of new talent as a disadvantage.
“We made peace with the fact we have four new players from the squad that played in the Commonwealth Games and even that squad had six debutants,” said Lategan.
“We rather see it as being in a privileged position to challenge ourselves and our opponents this weekend. We were given the opportunity to represent our country and to make a charge towards qualification, so we are not doing it for ourselves only, but for everyone back home and that is a massive motivation.
“We know what high standards we need to play at here. We have played Kenya in recent months and saw footage of China. We did not do analysis on Chile yet, but whatever they do, we must be able to adapt and adjust.”
Lategan joined the Springbok women’s Sevens side in 2019 and finished as the top-scorer for her team at the Commonwealth Games in July.
While she believes their defence is a solid area, one facet where Lategan wants to see more improvement in is on attack.
“We did identify attack as an area where we want to improve this weekend,” said Lategan.
“We have changed our defensive system a bit and everybody seems on board with that, so I am not too concerned about that aspect of our play.
“I would like to see us more effective on attack though. We try to keep the ball for longer, but the crucial part of that will be to use it effectively and score tries. That is what it is all about.”
Lategan also welcomes the pressure of being a senior player in a younger team. “The new players and the younger ones do bring a lot of energy and that is a good thing,” she said.
“For the senior players, the pressure lies in making sure we set the tone and standard on the field. If we do that, they will follow and the final result will be a good one, I believe. It is expected of us to make that step-up and increase the standard, so it is good pressure.”
SA women's pool games schedule:
Friday - Chile, 8.23pm
Saturday - Kenya, 1.37am
Saturday - China, 7.02pm
All matches will be live streamed on Sevens Challenger Series 2022 | World Rugby
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