12th June 2016
The SA Rugby Sevens Academy and SA Women’s Sevens Select squad were crowned champions in Italy on Saturday when both teams won their respective tournaments at the Roma Sevens, played in Rome.
The men’s team won their fourth consecutive title by beating Brazil’s national team 19-7 in the final, whilst the women’s team won their second invitational title by beating Kenya 40-0 in the final. The team also won the Hong Kong Invitational tournament two months ago.
After their respective finals, Werner Kok and Nadine Roos were also named Player of the Finals. Kok showed that he had fully recovered from his knee injury sustained last year and Roos scored 30 points in the Women’s final, scoring four tries and kicking five conversions.
Springbok Sevens coach Neil Powell travelled to Rome to follow the progress of Werner Kok and Frankie Horne amongst others and afterwards said he was happy with what he saw. Powell will name his provisional Olympic Games squad next week.
“It was good to see Werner and Frankie back in action and they definitely threw their names in the hat for selection,” said Powell.
“Both had to work very hard with conditioning coach Johan van Wyk to get back to a level where they could compete again. Credit to all of them, it is testament of the character of those players, who really worked hard to get back in shape.”