Blitzboks confident of first Hong Kong 7s win

The South Africa men’s sevens rugby team is chasing for their first Hong Kong 7s tournament win this weekend.

Celebrating the tournament’s 50th year, the closest the Blitzboks have reached were the Cup finals of 1997, 2008, 2009 and 2017 where they lost to Fiji and New Zealand respectively.

After winning the 2025/26 HSBC World Sevens Series title, South Africa is favourite to win the Hong Kong tournament.

South Africa 7s coach Philip Synman said they had to go back to zero as soon as they returned from New York as they started building momentum towards the three World Championship events in Hong Kong, Valladolid and Bordeaux.

“We started over; this is a new challenge and we have some players coming back, so we had to align first and the best way to do that is to start at the basics,” Snyman told SA (South Africa) Rugby.

“We worked hard in training, pushed each other very hard and reminded ourselves of our objectives at the start of this campaign. Doing well in Hong Kong was one of them, so we know what we are training for.

“Nothing has changed from our competitive excellence mindset in camp, so we will again travel with a quiet determination to build this team into one of the best in the world.

“Everyone is working towards that goal, whether he is selected for a particular trip or not. Someone like Quewin worked very hard over a couple of months in that role and now will be ready to contribute as we know he can.”

Syman also confirmed that Quewin Nortje will make a first appearance for the Blitzboks in Hong Kong.

The 23-year-old flyer had a frustrating time with injuries this season and missed all six regular stops of the SVNS Series, but is now fit and ready and will be an important cog in the Blitzboks attack at the Hong Kong tournament, with a strike rate of 32 tries in 12 tournaments.

The Blitzboks are in Pool A where they face Argentina, Spain and Uruguay. Fiji is the top seed in Pool B as they take on France, Great Britain and Germany.

Australia tops Pool C along with New Zealand, USA and Kenya.

Meanwhile, the Fiji men’s rugby 7s team continued on with their preparations in Hong Kong as they played warm-up matches against the hosts.