Cape Town — The real Blitzboks stood up in their Rugby World Cup Sevens seventh place play-off against Samoa on Sunday night.
The South Africans produced a much sharper performance to defeat Samoa 35-5 after some poor displays earlier in the competition.
Samoa did all of the defending in the opening half and not much changed in the second as the Blitzboks were on fire.
Sako Makata got the scoreboard moving for the Blitzboks to take an early 7-0 lead, and while it looked like Angelo Davids added a second after an acrobatic dive on the try line, his foot was in touch and the try was disallowed.
It didn’t take him long to actually add his name to the scoresheet, however, after a clever kick from Selvyn Davids through the middle of the field was picked up by Davids to finish and grab their second try.
The first real attacking chance the Samoans got resulted in nothing, and the hosts were awarded a penalty try after Paul Scanlan was yellow carded on the stroke of half-time to make it 21-0 at the break.
The Blitzboks made a proper statement with a try by skipper Siviwe Soyizwapi and the hard-runing JC Pretorius added a stunner of a score, which Sevens legend Cecil Afrika converted take a commanding 35-0 lead.
Samoa managed a consolation try at the end, but the Blitzboks owned the game to finish on a positive note.
Point scorers:
South Africa 35 — Tries: Sako Makata, Angelo Davids, Penalty Try, Siviwe Soyizwapi, JC Pretorius Conversions: Ronald Brown (3), Cecil Afrika
Samoa 5 — Try: Vaa Apelu Maliko