Vancouver 7s: Cold feet nabs Shujaa as Blitzboks claim gold in all African final

Shujaa's super impressive run at the Vancouver Sevens was brought to a stuttering end as they disappointingly lost 5-38 to an excellent South African side in the final match played early Sunday morning at the BC place.

After emerging second from Pool A behind South Africa, Kenya managed to reach the finals of the Canadian tournament after upsetting the USA in the quarterfinals before brushing aside Ireland in the semis to book their spot in the final.

Unlike 2018 where the team also got to the finals of the Vancouver Sevens before losing out to eventual winners Fiji, Kenya was looking forward to go one better in the first 2021 Series outing.

In store, lay a South African side that had already inflicted damage when the two sides met in the pool stage, Shujaa losing 33-14 in that clash.

But at the final gold match, as the two teams national anthems proudly reverberated all over BC place prior to kickoff, Shujaa would have certainly be baying to get their sweet revenge in the deciding match.

That was however not to be as Kenya could not get any footing in the game with South Africa's strangling and choking forcing the national side into committing a tone of errors that consequently ended up costing the team.

Despite forcing a knock on from the Blitzboks to win back possession as the game kicked off, a handling error easily gifted the Neil Powell coached side their first try of the game that came from none other than the sensational Angelo Davids who closed in on setting the individual record for the most tries in a single event.

After landing his first try and record equaling ninth try of the tournament, Davids broke the record held by USA's Perry Baker as he got his second try of the game after cleverly reading Daniel Taabu's offload before making an interception and running over the white line for his tenth individual try at the tournament.

Moments later Sayokisa Makata added the Blitzbok's third try as Kenya struggled to get a grip in the action. After three two failed attempts, Dewald Human converted to get the scores at 0-17.

Just as the second try, another sloppy play from Kenya gifted the South Africans a fourth try that Christoffel Grobeelar scored. Human converting again to get his side leading 0-24 by the half time break.

If Kenya were looking to get themselves back into the game in the second half, the South Africans scuttled those plans immediately after play's resumption as Ronald Brown landed another try to extend his side's tally to 0-31 after he converted as well.

With slightly over a minute to play, a rare foray into the South Africa territory bore fruit as Daniel Taabu found Kenya's consolation in the match with the team's only try of the game, the scores reading 5-31 following an unsuccessful conversion.

Still, there was time for South Africa to see out the game with another successfully converted try as Darren Adonis touched down to seal the Blitzboks victory at 5-38, leaving Kenya to settle for second place.