The Blitzboks can rightly feel proud of their achievement at the Paris Olympics after winning the bronze medal on Saturday South Africas first medal of the 2024 Games.
The team have travelled on a rocky road over the last two years, failing to impress in the world series, having key players move on to XV-man rugby, and others quitting, while there have also been changes in the coaching team.
Results have been poor and the team failed to qualify automatically for the Games, something they did without even thinking about for the 2016 and 2020 events, so dominant were they on the world circuit.
But not this time. This time just getting to the Paris Games felt like a struggle all on its own.
They also failed to qualify from the African qualifying event, losing out to Kenya, which was a shock to the system, and had to rely on winning the repechage tournament in Monaco just a few weeks ago to get into the Games as the last team.
