Blitzboks captain Siviwe Soyizwapi says the Blitzboks are looking to finish the season on a high in the final leg of the series in Paris this weekend.

Despite a disappointing second day at the London Sevens, where they were knocked out of the fifth-place semi-final by New Zealand, the Blitzboks still managed to secure fourth place on the overall standings.

This means automatic qualification for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, but before the Blitzboks can start celebrating that, they still have a title to defend.

Their epic win over England in last year’s final in Paris, which resulted in a series victory, is still seen as one of the great performances of the World Series, and nothing would please Soyizwapi more if they can finish well again.

‘We would like to finish the season well,’ Soyizwapi said. ‘It was an up-and-down season for us. We had a lot of new players coming in, which impacted on our consistency, but crucially we managed to achieve our goal of a top-four finish.

‘We want to look back at our last tournament of the season as one we can proud of. We want to go out and do it for each other one more time.’

Cecil Afrika, Dewald Human and Mfundo Ndhlovu have linked up with the squad this week, with Kurt-Lee Arendse, Stedman Gans and Selvyn Davids all heading home.

The Blitzboks were given some homework by their coach, Neil Powell, this week. They had to analyse their performances in London and the captain said all had benefited from the exercise.

‘It was part of the mental side of our preparation and added to the training sessions we had on the field. The three new guys came in nice and early, so we trained well with little disruptions.’

The Blitzboks face Australia, Wales and Kenya in Pool B of the tournament on Saturday.

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