The Blitzboks need to shut out the noise around the Cape Town Stadium to avoid falling into the trap of crowd pressure that has hampered trophy ambitions in the past when they take centre stage at the Cape Town Sevens tournament on Saturday.
Having won the first edition way back in 2015, the Springbok Sevens team have failed in each attempt to win at home for the last seven years, always coming up just short or flunking out in the quarters or semi-finals.
It doesn’t matter if they win in Dubai – the first tournament of the new season – when they arrive at home and run out in front of their families, friends and supporters, they always struggle to produce the goods.
On Saturday, Great Britain (10.50am), USA (2.18pm), and Ireland (7.40pm) stand in the way of the South Africans making it out of the pool stages and into the Sunday play-offs.
Selvyn Davids: "It will be about limiting mistakes and expressing ourselves through the game plan" – more here: https://t.co/hH5efMpsEE ⚡#Blitzboks #PoweredByUnity #HSBCSVNSCPT pic.twitter.com/dY8HRlAx9R
— Springbok Sevens (@Blitzboks) December 8, 2023
But why is it that the Cape Town Stadium hasn’t been kind to the Blitzboks? They were very successful at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Gqeberha before the event moved to the Mother City.
They won under emotional circumstances in 2013 when President Nelson Mandela passed away on the Thursday before the tournament.
They went back to back in 2014, and with the move to Cape Town a year later, they won the South African tournament for a third time in a row.
But ever since the move to the rugby-mad Cape Town and that first win, it has been a struggle for the Blitzboks, who just can’t seem to get it right in front of their fans.
Maybe it’s the noise of the almost 55,000 supporters that ‘scares’ them.
Imagine having to live up to the expectations of about 110,000 people on a sevens weekend. And Blitzbok and Springbok supporters can be fickle, and expect nothing but the best from their sides.
If you speak to the players, like captain Selvyn Davids, Ryan Oosthuizen and Zain Davids admitted this week, the pressure (and noise) from the crowd can sometimes be at the back of their minds.
That is why it will be vital for them to shut that out, totally – because if those thoughts of ‘we haven’t won here for a couple of years’ or ‘we have to entertain the crowd’ creep in on the day, they will most certainly continue on the same route as prior tournaments and not emerge victorious.
If they play for the crowd, they will most likely be watching the final in the stands.
The Blitzboks have a trusted system, and after the failures and lessons of last season, the senior players went back to what they knew and learnt from the system.
It brought success in Dubai, and if they stay in that system, it will take them one step closer to success in Cape Town.
As for the noise from the home crowd, it will be there the entire weekend.
Wishing it away won’t help. Being consumed by it won’t help in their quest for a title.
They will have to shut the noise out if they want to break their drought for a first tournament victory in almost a decade.
