adminCape Town – The Springbok Sevens squad for the Rio Olympic Games was announced yesterday.
Coach Neil Powell announced a 12-man squad which will be led by regular skipper Kyle Brown.
Regular fifteen-a-side players Juan de Jongh and Cheslin Kolbe were included, but there were no spots for Springboks Bryan Habana and Francois
Hougaard, who both featured on the sevens circuit this past season.
Hougaard, though, will be a travelling substitute, along with Chris Dry.
The Blitzboks are seeded second for the Olympic Sevens rugby competition, set to run from August 6-11.
They will contend Group B at the tournament, which consists of 12 teams across three pools.
Each team plays the three other nations in their pool over the first three match sessions with three points for a win, two for a draw and one for a loss.
The best eight teams will then proceed to the first round of knock-out matches, the quarter finals.
Those will be the three teams who top their pool, along with the three teams placed second in each pool and also the two best third-placed teams, based on competition points and then points difference.
Meanwhile, An eligibility ruling made by the Super Rugby organisers is what is understood to have prompted Sharks director of rugby Gary Gold to change his initial plan and bracket Pat Lambie on the bench for Friday night’s last league clash with the Sunwolves, SuperSport.com reports.
Although he was able to start exercising again on Tuesday, Lambie has still shown slight symptoms of the concussion he sustained over a month ago courtesy of his clash with the thigh of Ireland forward CJ Stander at Newlands. That was why Lambie was initially going to be excluded from the Sharks match day squad for today’s game.- Sport24
Online Reporter
derick.khumalo