Hello everyone! Welcome to another presentation on IN THE WHITE. I hope you all are well as we continue to battle this global Pandemic.

In today’s session, I will be discussing on the recently concluded HSBC Malaga 7’s, focusing on the Men’s side of the draw.

The third World Sevens Series tournament that headed to Spain for the first time in the competition’s history has been won by South Africa, following a late try from Selvyn Davids to snatch a 24-17 victory over Argentina.

It was a thrilling final that saw the lead exchange on couple of occasions. It was Argentina who struck first through Rodrigo Isgro, after which JC Pretorius and Selvyn Davids scored a try each to take the Blitzboks into the lead.

Argentina’s Joaquin de la Vega then scored two quick tries to put his side back in front. However, Justin Gedulud’s try locked both teams at 17 all, before Davids crossed over the line for his second and the match-winning try, which was also converted by Branco du Preez.

Performance & Analysis

***Argentina win silver medal in Malaga***

Looking at the overall performance of the teams that participated in the tournament, Argentina were one of the sides that really put a show over the three days, and I must they deserved to be in the final. Despite losing to the United States (24-17) in the last pool match, the Pumas beat Jamaica 31-7 and hosts Spain 40-12, to advance into the cup quarter-finals where they hammered Ireland 29-5 and did extremely well to beat England 26-17 in the semi-final.

Teams such as Ireland Germany were also quite impressive, especially Germany’s 12 all result against Australia in the group stages were emphatic.

Ireland on the other hand, were marvelous in the pool stages with wins over Japan (33-14), Germany (24-7) and Australia (10-5), before falling in the knockout stage.

As for the champions, South Africa in top form from day one with victories against Scotland (27-7) and England (43-0), while the match with Fiji was recorded (0-0) for both sides and three points awarded to the Bitzboks after Fiji could not make it to the tournament due to a few players alongside some management staff testing positive for COVID-19.

Missing Teams

It is unfortunate that teams such as Fiji, New Zealand and Samoa who were to take part at the event did not participate due to travel restrictions amid the global Pandemic.

A point to note at the tournament was that all opponents facing Fiji were given a (0-0) score line and points awarded to the opposition.

This was done as no replacement could be arranged, since the news of the COVID positive test result came in quite late, giving the organizers not enough time to find a substitute team.

In comparison to New Zealand, who were replaced by Germany in Malaga and will be again swapped by Belgium at the Seville 7’s this week. Likewise, Jamaica were in place of Samoa last week and will be part of the competition this week, together with Germany.