AMERICAN DREAM

THE Blitzboks’ 2025 season had it all: a rare home win in Cape Town, a losing final appearance in Vancouver, a fourth-place finish in Perth and some swak results in Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore.

For Shilton van Wyk – who experienced the highs and lows in all of those tournaments – the final event of the season, this weekend’s SVNS World Championship in Los Angeles, will be good, but only if they find consistency in their effort and application.

South Africa are grouped with heavyweights France (9.12pm kickoff on Saturday), Great Britain (12.13am on Sunday) and Argentina (3.46am on Sunday) in a tough Pool A.

The speedster from Saldanha Bay says: “We know we can beat any team and we showed that, even in our most recent outing in Singapore, where we managed a win over Argentina, the series winners, despite not playing at our best.

“That was the frustrating part of it, when we let ourselves down in matches, but we have arrived here in Los Angeles determined to finish strong.”

The 25-year-old Van Wyk is used to winning away from home, with four Dubai wins testimony of that, and he predicts a strong finish by the Blitzboks at Dignity Health Sports Park.

He adds: “We had some targets at the start of the season and we managed to achieve a number of those.

“A top four finish was one, compared to the seventh place from the previous season, while we wanted to play in semi-finals at each of the events. We did so in three of the six, so that was not too bad, especially if you consider the win in Cape Town as well. But a win here in the USA will be even better reward.”

Van Wyk compared the Dignity Health Sports Park pitch to that of Cape Town Stadium, something that suits the Sevens game.

Van Wyk says: “We don’t get the crowds we got in Cape Town, but there is a strong group of Blitzbok supporters that have attended over the last couple of years.”