The decorated 28-year-old is on his first visit to Hong Kong, and he plans to make the best of this opportunity, with the long-anticipated tournament victory also on \u201cto do list\u201d in the Far East this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone is raving about this tournament and from what I saw on TV in the past, there is certainly a hype,\u201d said Brits.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am in a lift club with Ryan Oosthuizen as well and he speaks with great respect of the tournament. For me personally, the Cape Town Sevens is the best tournament ever, especially when we play in the final and win, like we did in the last two years, but I am prepared to give Hong Kong a go,\u201d Brits added, still with a wink of the eye.<\/p>\n
\u201cI missed out on the tournament the last two years because of injury, which was unfortunate, but that is how rugby goes sometimes. This time around I made it, much to my delight as I can now also play in what will be a huge moment in my sevens career. The fact that we arrive here well prepared makes the wait even more exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brits has enjoyed the glory that came with winning the HSBC SVNS World Championship in Los Angeles last year and the HSBC SVNS Series in 2026, but he said the Blitzboks are starting afresh in the first of three World Championship tournaments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came here with the series behind us, as we now focus on the next challenge,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very proud of what we achieved thus far, but that is in the bank, and we are ready to start creating new memories for the group.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was quite telling that this time around, we did not welcome any debutants into our first training session like we had in Cape Town, Singapore, Perth, Vancouver and New York. It shows that our coaches had a plan, made it work and that the players are settled and ready to deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brits said the fact that the Blitzboks are the only team that had already booked their place in next year’s HSBC SVNS Series, courtesy of winning the 2026 series, will be a comfort, but no guarantee to success in the three-tournament World Championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the other teams are vying for the other seven spots, so they will be playing for survival basically,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to counter that urgency when we face Uruguay, Spain and Argentina in our pool. As usual, we will not look past that first match against Uruguay on Friday. That mindset worked well for us thus far, so we are not changing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Apart from Brits, Jayden Nell is the other Blitzbok player never to have played at this tournament. In fact, Nell was the final debutant during the series when he flew in from South Africa to replace the injured Christie Grobbelaar for the HSBC SVNS New York tournament.<\/p>\n
Nell is still taking it all in, but as he has shown in New York, he ready to contribute when needed: \u201cI think what helped me in New York was that first game against New Zealand, when I was 13th man and did not play, I could experience the match real time with the squad and when I got my opportunity, I knew what was coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy job this time will be the same. As a forward, we need to generate momentum and I am also doing my bit in the lineouts so keen to contribute when I get the chance,\u201d Nell said.<\/p>\n
Most Blitzbok tournament appearances in Hong Kong
10 Branco du Preez
8 Chris Dry, Frankie Horne
7 Cecil Afrika, Kyle Brown<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The decorated 28-year-old is on his first visit to Hong Kong, and he plans to make the best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-604016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}