(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) After a memorable night which culminated in South Africa winning the Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens at The Sevens Stadium, World Rugby Sevens Player of the Year Seabelo Senatla heaped praise on his teammates for the bucketful of tries he conjured over the weekend.
The 23-year-old finisher, who won the World Rugby Sevens Player of the Year award after scoring a whopping 66 tries said that it felt like he is in heaven when playing with the Blitzboks. "I'm really pleased," Senatla said after scoring 11 tries over the Dubai weekend.
"But, to be quite honest, it is team work because most of my tries have come because of my teammates. If you watch the matches closely, you can see how much space they created for me on the outside. All the work is done on the inside and it is such a pleasure for me, as a finisher, to play with guys that are so magical with the ball in hand and can create space anywhere. I feel like I'm in heaven when I play with the Blitzboks," he added.
The Blitzboks bested Olympic champions Fiji 26-14 on the night and Senatla, who termed it as "almost the perfect game," said that playing against the Fijians was as good a benchmark as it gets to know where they stand.
"It is always up and down against Fiji. We saw the title match and it all depends on the day who wants it more. And it is always nice to play them because that is how you measure yourself. They have won the season thrice in a row so I think it is always nice to play against them because you measure yourself against the best and see how far you are from being the best. So, we enjoy playing teams which are ranked higher than us," said Senatla.
The South Africans may have put the best team to shade but Senatla said that missing gold at the Rio Olympics did rankle.
"Nothing will make up for that. We know that we disappointed in Rio and we know we had the potential to win gold. In the same breath, we were pretty grateful to actually clinch the bronze because not a lot of teams got a medal at the Olympics. So, we took it in the manner and that attitude that we didn't actually lose gold but we won bronze. So, we forgot about the Olympics and it is a new season now and nothing that happened last season or the Olympics is going to help us this season. So, we knew we will start afresh and this is the best thing for us," he said.
The Blitzboks won the bronze medal by defeating Japan 54-14.After their Dubai triumph, attention now shifts to the second round of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens in their own backyard next weekend. The second round will be played out in Cape Town on December 10 and 11. And Senatla said that they will take this momentum going into Cape Town.
"The momentum is going to be so much for us and it means a lot because that's what you need going into a home tournament. There is a whole lot of pressure behind us. I think we won it three or four times in a row so I think there is a huge amount of expectation and there's a whole lot of pressure but we need to move from it and deviate from that and focus on us. But it is a great opportunity to play at home, one opportunity we have to play in front of our fans," said Senatla.
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