While Springbok Women’s Sevens coach Renfred Dazel is wary of the do-or-die format of the 2025 World Rugby Challenger Series, he is confident that the team he’s backing for the tournament in Athlone on 1 and 2 March can handle the pressure.
The Challenger Series will be used to determine the top four teams that will battle it for qualification for next season's World SVNS Series.
The first two of three Challenger tournaments will be hosted in Cape Town on the weekends of 1-2 and 7-8 March, with 12 men’s and 12 women’s teams battling it out for SVNS spots. The competing men’s and women’s teams qualified via regional competitions. South Africa booked their place in the tournament when they won the Rugby Africa Women’s Sevens title in Ghana in November 2024.
The four men’s and women’s teams with the most cumulative points gained across the three Challenger Series rounds will then qualify for the SVNS promotion/relegation play-offs in Los Angeles on 3-4 May, where they will face the bottom-four ranked teams from the 2025 World SVNS Series. Four World Series places are up for grabs.
The Bok Women's Sevens will contest Hong Kong China and Czechia in Pool A on Saturday for a place in Sunday's semi-finals. And while the competition format already adds pressure, the fact that the South Africans will be playing in front of their home crowd and won the Series the last time they enjoyed home-ground advantage in Stellenbosch in 2023 guarantees that all eyes will be on them.
South Africa’s experience is key
Mathrin Simmers, South Africa's most decorated and experienced women's sevens player, will lead the squad featuring only two uncapped players. Simmers will be joined by Rights Mkhari, Zintle Mpupha, Kemisetso Baloyi, Nadine Roos, and Ayanda Malinga, who all featured in the 2023 edition.
While the Bok Women's Sevens are focused on becoming a core SVNS team again, the Women's Fifteens World Cup will take place in England in August and September. And, with a large contingent of dual-code players in the group, keeping players from both the Fifteens and Sevens group sharp is a focus, Dazel said.
I think the experience was important in terms of the planning we did going into this. We had a good chat with the Swys (de Bruin; Springbok Women performance coach) and the Fifteens management and we came up with a good plan to still get them (the Fifteens players) involved in Sevens with an eye on the World Cup later this year.
As a Sevens system we want to see where we can benefit from their and the other way around.
Format makes a good start crucial
The first two rounds of the Challenger Series will follow the same competition format employed during the SVNS Cape Town tournament in December 2024.
The four pool winners will progress directly to contest the semi-finals, while second-placed teams will play for fifth to eighth places, and teams finishing third in their pools will compete for ninth to twelfth positions.
While the format is different and the straight knock-out feel that comes with this format certainly adds to the pressure, Dazel explained that the goal remains the same.
I think for me the format is the same as a four-team pool, it’s just that there’s more pressure because there’s that one game less and now there’s more pressure to win all your games.
Sometimes with the four-team pool you can slip up and then there’s another opportunity for you to rectify it and still finish at the top, but you can’t slip up in this one. You need to finish on top to get that semi-final spot.
Our approach will still be the same. We are going to focus on the first game against Hong Kong China on Saturday, then from there we will see how we approach the rest of the tournament and get more momentum going forward.
As for playing in front of our home crowd, it’s always one of two things – either it can go really well, or it can go really badly. But I think the girls are up to it, that’s why we selected a team that can handle that pressure and transfer that ability to the rest of the team in order for us to qualify for LA and get back onto the world circuit.
Challenger pools:
- Pool A: South Africa, Czechia, Hong Kong China
- Pool B Argentina, Thailand, Mexico
- Pool C: Belgium, Uganda, Colombia
- Pool D: Poland, Kenya, Samoa
SA fixtures
Saturday, March 1:
- 15h55: Hong Kong China
- 19h36: Czechia
Springbok Women Sevens squad for the opening tournament of the Challenger Series: Leigh Fortuin, Zintle Mpupha, Felicia Jacobs, Maria Tshiremba, Kayla Swarts *, Nadine Roos, Mathrin Simmers (captain), Kemisetso Baloyi, Shiniqwa Lamprecht, Ayanda Malinga, Alicia Willemse *, Rights Mkhari.
* uncapped
