The Blitzboks began the defence of their Vancouver Sevens title with a hard-fought 12-0 victory against Japan on Saturday.

Fresh off the back of their miraculous Cup final win over Fiji in Los Angeles, South Africa came into the Vancouver tournament with the hope of replicating the form and ultimately unbeaten run they achieved a week earlier.

The Springbok Sevens team won this tournament in 2019 and they started off this year’s event on a high against Japan, who to be fair, were not all that bad in this match.

The opening five minutes was a mixed bag of good defensive work from the Japanese and bad execution from the Blitzboks. But as they almost always do, the Blitzboks overcame their sluggish start to take a 12-0 lead at the break thanks to tries from Muller du Plessis and Sako Makata.

The second half was even tighter than the first, with Japan keeping the Blitzboks scoreless, frustratingly so. Japan’s superb effort was almost rewarded with what would have been a deserved try, but Blitzboks replacement Chris Dry made a super blindsided tackle to dislodge the ball to help his team keep a clean sheet.

South Africa next take on Argentina at 11:18pm tonight, followed by their final pool game against England at 02:30am on Sunday morning.

Photo: @Blitzboks/Twitter/Gallo Images