Light at the end of LA tunnel as Blitzboks look ahead to Sevens World Cup

It was a tournament the Blitzboks would rather forget at the Los Angeles Sevens over the weekend as they finished 13th overall, their lowest finishe under Neil Powell since he took charge of the team a decade ago. 

South Africa could only manage three wins but lost critical encounters to the USA and New Zealand in the pool stages and then Wales in the playoff for ninth place.  

It certainly wasn't the result that Powell, coaching the team in his 75th tournament, would have wanted as they ended in second place in the 2022 World Rugby Sevens Series. 

Their performance won't help with their confidence with the Rugby World Cup Sevens taking place next weekend. 

Powell, however, believes lessons can be learned from their dismal Los Angeles Sevens showing.  

"We need to look back at this tournament before we can look towards Cape Town. There are lessons to learn from the weekend, so to just discard what happened here will not be the best thing to do," said Powell.  

Powell will take it upon himself and his management to do the soul searching the Blitzboks need before next week. 

"It is more for our management; the players need to stay positive," he said. 

"It was a poor performance, but we did see some positives. The last game against Japan was much more to our standard, and we will use that positive example of what we can do as a team to create some momentum on our way to Cape Town in 10 days. " 

The short turnaround - the team only arrive back in Cape Town on Tuesday evening - will demand clever management, Powell admitted. 

"We will need to plan our sessions from here on in to make sure we get the best result out of every training session," he said.

"Our consistency over the last five tournaments was not great, and it is a bit of a