HSBC Rugby SVNS Cape Town 2023

2023.12.14

Following another championship for Australia women and Argentina men’s first of the season, we revisit the big talking points from DHL Stadium.

Australia and Argentina were celebrating at HSBC SVNS Cape Town at the end of another tense weekend on and off the field at DHL Stadium.

It means that the men’s and women’s HSBC SVNS 2024 rankings are tied as the teams prepare for HSBC SVNS Perth in January.

As the 24 teams prepare to take a well-deserved break, we look back on seven things we learnt from two days of action in Cape Town.

Australia’s women are incredibly resilient.

If Australia’s first-round triumph in Dubai, which came at the cost of New Zealand and their record winning streak, was stunning, they may have taken things to a new level in Cape Town.

On day one, Charlotte Caslick and her teammates breezed through the pool stage, defeating Spain, Japan, and Fiji by an aggregate score of 120-7.

Another nine tries and 57 points were scored as Australia defeated Ireland and the United States on Sunday to go to their second Cup final in a row.

Seven days on from beating the Black Ferns Sevens in the showpiece match in Dubai despite being reduced to six players, they did it again. However, with Maddison Levi’s red card at DHL Stadium coming at the end of the first half, they had to cope a player light for even longer before confirming a 29-26 win against France and their first Cape Town title.

With a home tournament coming up next month, few would bet against them making it three in a row in Perth.

There was a time when the sight of Argentina winning a series tournament would have created headlines. Not anymore, Los Pumas Sevens are the form men’s team on the circuit.

Santiago Gómez Cora’s side finished as runners-up in the 2023 standings, and they have made the early running this month, their Cape Town triumph giving them an eight-point lead over South Africa and Fiji beneath them.

Blyde’s landmark intervention came at the end of the first half of New Zealand’s 41-0 Cup quarter-final win over Canada and she would add a 201st before the tournament was done.

The two-time World Rugby Women’s Sevens Player of the Year still has some way to go to catch team-mate Portia Woodman-Wickliffe, who has 235 series tries to her name, but she’ll have fun chasing her down.

Nothing says more for the competitiveness of a competition than the team that finished 12th the previous weekend beating both the series and tournament champions on the opening day of the next.

That is exactly what Canada’s men did as they stunned the All Blacks Sevens with three tries in four minutes either side of half-time in their opening match in Cape Town before beating Samoa 33-7 in their second.

Cooper Coats and Jack Carson starred in those impressive victories and the latter scored two of his side’s five tries as they beat France in the seventh-place play-off on Sunday.

The team’s only defeats at DHL Stadium came at the hands of winners Argentina and runners-up Australia. Not bad for a side that only secured their place in SVNS via the World Rugby Sevens Series 2024 Play-off and lost five from five in Dubai.

@charith