Springboks avenge loss to Fiji, capture Cup title at USA Sevens Las Vegas

Fiji, with its combination of speed and strength, spent much of the weekend looking like the rugby team to beat in the USA Sevens Las Vegas.

Fiji blasted through Saturday's pool play, knocking defending champion Samoa out of the main draw, then beat New Zealand by 19 points in Sunday's Cup semifinals.

Then to win the 16-nation tournament at Sam Boyd Stadium, Fiji faced a South Africa team it defeated by 14 points the week before.

But South Africa learned from that experience, and the outcome was much different Sunday. The Springboks led throughout to defeat Fiji 24-14 and claim the Cup title before an announced crowd of 25,032.

"After last weekend, we really picked it up a couple of levels," South Africa captain Kyle Brown said. "This week, we really stressed our basics and our fundamentals and stuck to that."

The United States began the day with a 19-15 loss to Canada, ending the Americans' hopes of repeating as Bowl champions. That dropped the U.S. from the third to the fourth level. It went on to beat Uruguay 27-7 and Japan 19-12 to win the Shield title.

Samoa won the Plate championship, the second-highest division, with a 26-15 victory over Kenya. Scotland took the Bowl title with a 19-14 win over Canada.

As for South Africa, the Springboks took an early 12-0 lead, but Fiji cut it to 19-14 in the second half. Then South Africa nailed down the victory when Bernado Botha fought through two Fiji defenders to score a try for what turned out to be the 24-14 final score.

It was like an away game for South Africa, considering the large contingent of Fiji supporters, but the youthful Springboks didn't fall apart.

"It's always difficult when you play Fiji," South Africa coach Paul Treu said. "Fiji is always going to have a lot of away support. What was important was for us to keep our composure and to take opportunities. I think that's exactly what we did for the entire game."

The U.S. lost its shot at repeating as Bowl champion when it fell in the quarterfinals to Canada. Paul Emerick scored two of the Americans' three tries, including one in the closing seconds. But the U.S. didn't line up in time for the ensuing kickoff before time expired.

It was an especially disappointing loss for the Americans considering they beat Canada 31-7 a week earlier. But that also was a U.S. team at full strength; three players were lost to injury Saturday.

"We believe that we're definitely a league above Canada," U.S. coach Al Caravelli said. "Not to take anything away from them, but when you put 31 points on them a week ago and then you look at this morning, we should've closed out the game."

The defeat sent the U.S. into the lowest division, but the Americans made the most of the situation by winning both games to claim the Shield title.

"We had a choice to finish the tournament the way we wanted to finish it," U.S. captain Matt Hawkins said. "I think the guys did that. I think that's the biggest thing for us going in to the next (tournament)."

The U.S. next plays in Hong Kong on March 25 and will need momentum after dropping from ninth to 11th in the Sevens World Series standings.

"We're disappointed because we know we can do so much better," Caravelli said before noting the positives of noticeably increased attendance and NBC's live TV coverage. He said he hopes the increased attention will grow the sport.

"Those are things we need," Caravelli said, "so we can creep up into the top eight and be solid, instead of vacillating between, eight, nine, 10 and 11."

Contact reporter Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2914.