Fabian Juries was the two-try hero as South Africa ended New Zealand’s unbeaten 47-match streak by winning the final of the IRB Adelaide World Series Sevens 15-7 on Sunday.
The South Africans, beaten 26-12 by New Zealand in last weekend’s Hong Kong Sevens, turned the tables with the flying Juries scoring two of his team’s three tries to topple the runaway series leaders, who were bidding for eight back-to-back sevens tournaments.
The victory is only South Africa’s sixth against New Zealand in almost 10 years and the first since Dubai in 2006.
PHOTO :AP
The title lifted South Africa to 92 points in the world series standings, 34 points behind New Zealand (126) with two legs left — in London on May 24 and May 25 and Edinburgh on May 31 and June 1.
New Zealand now need just seven points from the Twickenham event in London to tie up their series defense.
“We were playing against the team setting the standard,” South Africa coach Paul Treu said.
“They’re going to win the series and credit to them but credit to our players too,” he said.
“Last week [in Hong Kong] we made too many mistakes and we set goals for them not to beat us through our mistakes and not to beat us through lack of passion and commitment and we achieved that,” Treu said.
“We wanted to finish in the top three this season. It seems like we’re going to finish second. We wanted to win two tournaments. We’re on our way to doing that,” he said.
South Africa took an early 10-0 lead with two unconverted tries from Robert Ebersohn and Juries, but had to withstand a determined second-half fightback from the New Zealand team.
Powerhouse Victor Vito muscled his way over for a converted try shortly after halftime to make the score 10-7 and put the Kiwis within range of salvaging the final.
But Juries, the player of the tournament, settled the issue with his second try to bring off the mighty upset.
South Africa reached the final with a 19-5 win over Kenya in the quarter-finals and knocked over Samoa 17-12 in the semi-final.
New Zealand had a struggle to reach the final, needing a late Zar Lawrence try to overcome last year’s Adelaide champions Fiji 17-14 in the semi-finals and relying on another late try by skipper DJ Forbes to edge out Tonga 19-14 in the quarter-finals.
The South Africans showed more verve and pace in the final, often catching out the Kiwis with swift ball movement and superior pace.
Tonga won the Plate final, beating Kenya 14-12, while Argentina downed the US 26-21 in the Bowl final.
Wales won the Shield final, defeating Canada 12-7.
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