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Blitzboks finish fourth in France
The Blitzboks suffered a heavy defeat to Spain in Sunday’s third-place playoff at the Bordeaux Sevens. hilogame.news
Having edged Fiji 14-12 in their quarter-final on Saturday to secure back-to-back SVNS World Championship titles, South Africa lost 21-12 to hosts France in their semi-final on Saturday before being hammered 40-14 by Spain.
France went on to beat New Zealand 14-5 in the final.
The Blitzboks started the day with only 10 fit players and then lost captain Impi Visser before their final match.
Shilton van Wyk scored early against Spain after chasing down his own kick for his fourth try of the weekend.
Spain fluffed their lines from the restart and from the resulting possession, Ricardo Duarttee scored an acrobatic try, which he converted to give the Blitzboks a 14-0 lead midway through the first half.
But Spain scored next after a patient build-up, where they kept the ball alive in contact, and eventually the South African defence faltered. Zain Davids was yellow-carded for impeding on the pass and after that, the Blitzboks imploded.
Spain immediately capitalised on that extra played and scored under the sticks when a desperate South African defence over-tracked to make it 14-14 at the break, and still playing against only six men, they made that 19-14 early in the second half.
The Spanish were on a roll and even when Davids returned, a well-executed lineout play handed then a fourth try and a 26-14 lead.
Duarttee was then yellow-carded with three minutes left, which sealed the deal for Spain.
Getting desperate on attack as the Blitzboks were running out of time, a long pass was intercepted by Spain, whose converted try made it 33-14.
Another unforced error, this time a charged-down kick, allowed Spain to score a final try.
CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD
South Africa are HSBC SVNS World Championship winners#HSBCSVNS pic.twitter.com/VW4IPlF3mP
— HSBC SVNS (@SVNSSeries) June 7, 2026
Photo: David van der Sandt/Gallo Images
The post Blitzboks finish fourth in France appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
France – Irlande du Nord : Magennis impressionné par les Bleus
Eliminé en barrage de qualification à la Coupe du monde par l’Italie, l’Irlande du Nord ne participera à la compétition dans quelques jours. La nation du Royaume-Uni jouera demain soir contre l’équipe de France sur le sol français à Lille.
Présent avec la sélection irlandaise en entrant en jeu en fin de match contre la Guinée, l’attaquant d’Exeter City en League One, Josh Magennis a abordé cette rencontre, ces dernières heures, sur le site de la BBC et assure se mesurer à « une équipe de classe mondiale ».
« Ils font probablement partie des cinq équipes qui s’attendent à remporter la Coupe du monde, et ils ont tout à fait raison car ils possèdent un nombre incroyable de joueurs. », a ajouté le joueur expérimenté avec 88 sélections depuis 2010 et 12 buts. L’attaquant prévient la France en cas de suffisance, sa nation répondra. « S’ils nous manquent de respect, ce que je ne prévois pas, ou s’ils sont un peu ternes, nous avons largement de quoi les mettre en difficulté et c’est ce que nous comptons faire. », a conclu le joueur de 35 ans passé notamment par Charlton, Wigan, Hull et Bolton.
The post France – Irlande du Nord : Magennis impressionné par les Bleus appeared first on AfricaFootUnited.
Banyana coach Ellis says there’s much to learn from Japan defeat
Banyana Banyana head coach Dr Desiree Ellis says her side will take some lessons from their 5-0 defeat to Japan in the first of two international friendly matches.
South Africa conceded as early as the first minute through Kiko Seike who doubled the lead 18 minutes later. By half time it was 3-0 after Momoko Tanikawa had scored the third.
Aoba Fujino then grabbed a brace as Japana ran away 5-0 winners at the Yanmar Hanasaka Stadium on Saturday.
“You learn a lot more from defeats than what you learn from wins, this is part of our preparation. Japan was excellent today, pouncing on every mistake and scoring from every mistake and that is what top sides do. I think there’s a lot of lessons to be learned as preparation for WAFCON, we created a few half chances and maybe better decisions in the final third could have gotten us in behind goal, but today we played against a top side,” Ellis told SAFA media.
“We wanted to be really compact in the first 20 minutes and made sure that we closed all the spaces, but unfortunately, we conceded early before we could settle down and then we couldn’t recover in time. We had analyzed and we knew what was going to happen, but we put ourselves under pressure when we tried to hold on to the ball. There were moments when we got out and played, but it was not often enough because of the pressure that the Japanese players put on our players and at times, they were clinical on the mistakes they pounced on.”
Banyana Banyana and Japan meet again on Tuesday in the second and final friendly at the same venue. Kick-off is at 8.30am South African time.
The 2022 African Champions are using the two matches as part of the preparations for next month’s CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON 2026) which will be held in Morocco from 25 July to 17 August.
France-Irlande du Nord – Didier Deschamps évoque son adversaire
L’équipe de France reçoit lundi soir au Stade Pierre-Mauroy de Lille l’Irlande du Nord. Les Bleus joueront ce dernier match avant de s’envoler pour Boston et la Coupe du monde.
L’équipe de France sort d’un revers à Nantes contre la Côte d’Ivoire (2-1) et se rend à Lille pour défier demain soir (19h10 GMT) la 70e nation mondiale, l’Irlande du Nord, avant disputer le Mondial 2026.
À la veille de ce dernier match en presse, le sélectionneur tricolore Didier Deschamps a répondu aux questions des médias. « Dans cette équipe d’Irlande, il y a pas mal de bons joueurs qui évoluent en Angleterre, avec des jeunes aussi. Ils ont beaucoup de verticalité dans leur jeu. C’est important pour nous évidemment de finir notre préparation par une victoire. Je remercie l’Irlande du Nord d’avoir accepté parce qu’entre les équipes qui voulaient jouer aux Etats-Unis ou chez eux et ceux qui ne voulaient pas nous affronter (sourire)… », a confié le technicien français en conférence de presse.
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