Cape Town Sevens 2019: Standings and stats from the Mother City’s jamboree

New Zealand did the double at the fifth edition of the Cape Town Sevens with their men’s and women’s teams winning their respective tournaments.

With a women’s tournament added to the action for the first time, and the action extended to three days, ramping up the action a notch.

Naturally, the number of tries scored across the weekend increased. The 28 teams in action crossed the whitewash 385 times, according to a press release issued by the tournament.

But, dig a little deeper and the numbers paint a different picture.

Entertainment doesn’t have to be a scoring riot

The total points scored in all the men’s matches at the 2019 Cape Town Sevens was just 1438 – the lowest since the South African leg found a new home.

It’s also the first year where the points tally was below 1700. The fewest points for the weekend previously was 1713 – back in 2017.

Across all men’s matches, just 226 tries were scored, a new record low and the first time the tournament has seen fewer than 230 tries.

There were 293 tries for the men’s tournament at the 2018 edition (although an official release put this  number at 297, using the sum total on the official World Series Sevens site amounts to 293).

While the sample size for Cape Town is small since the tournament is still relatively new, it’s perhaps a sign that the competitive gap is closing.

In Dubai, Fiji missed out on the pool stages while England missed out in Cape Town. Newly promoted to the core teams, Ireland progressed to the knockouts on just their second attempt, while France also claimed a few big scalps – including beating Fiji in the bronze medal match.

While South Africa and New Zealand have taken turns at winning the title this season, neither side have had easy passages to those victories.

It bodes well for the remainder of the season and for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. 

The picture is similar in terms of the number of tries scored by all teams. That perhaps suggests that as well as closing the gap, all teams are becoming more defensively cunning – and aren’t afraid to challenge traditionally defensive powerhouses like South Africa.

Indeed, Blitzboks were given a taste of their own defensive medicine on more than one occasion over the weekend.

France and New Zealand both scored 25 tries in total, but this is also a new low – the previous low was 26. If there’s one positive for the Fijians, though, it’s that they haven’t quite lost their scoring prowess, they crossed the whitewash 24 times.

Numbers alone do not convey the full picture, though. Both the finals in Dubai and Cape Town were relatively low-scoring by Seven’s standards. South Africa’ beat New Zealand 15-0 on the opening weekend while the final in Cape Town was a tetchy 5-7 affair.

But both those matches were some of the finest displays of finals rugby anyone could wish for.

Not so yellow and mellow

The tournament did shatter a rather dubious record, though.

 The 2019 Cape Town Sevens smashed its own record for the most yellow cards. A total of 34 yellow cards were dished out across the men’s matches over the weekend.

Fiji also notched up the unfortunate individual record of most yellow cards by a single team. They have the bronze medal match still to play, but collected six yellow cards, one more than their previous record of five.

It looked certain from day one that this edition of the Cape Town Sevens would break new ground when 11 yellow cards dished out in just eight men’s matches.

Teams played just one match each on Friday but Australia, Fiji and Samoa all earned themselves two cards apiece. Argentina, England, Ireland, South Africa and the USA sit on one each.

The South African leg of the World Series Sevens moved to Cape Town in the 2016-17 season, so records are still in their infancy, but such trends in unravelling discipline is always noticeable.

The first edition of the Cape Sevens had 21 yellow cards over the weekend with England’s four the most of all the teams that weekend.  The total yellows across the weekend increased to 23 the following year before taking a little dip back down to just 19 in the 2017-18 season. Last year though, the junket set the record with 27 yellow cards issued – Fiji with five getting in trouble most often.

New Zealand’s triumph – a unique quirk

New Zealand’s win at the 2019 Cape Town Sevens came with a unique quirk. The All Blacks beat South Africa 5-7 in a feisty final.

It was only the second time since the South African leg of the World Series moved to Cape Town that the team that scored the most points across the weekend also won the series.

Captain Scott Curry praised his team for rising to a “massive challenge” as they avenged a defeat by the Blitzboks in the final of the series opener in Dubai last week.

“It doesn’t get much better than that – playing South Africa at (their) home in front of 50 000 fans roaring their national anthem,” he said after the match.

Scoring by the bucketload doesn’t always mean the rugby is better. The lower scoring could be an indication that the gap is narrowing.

And that makes New Zealand’s feat at this year’s event all the more intriguing – and sets the tone for what can be expected of them over the season.

There have been five editions of the Cape Town Sevens since it first moved to the Mother City (including 2019). South Africa won the first edition, scoring just 123 points across the weekend (eights overall for most points). Fiji topped the points with 210.

The Flying Fijians were top of the scoring log the following year again with 176 points across all matches, but England won the tournament with 142 points in total (fourth-most).

New Zealand won the 2017 edition (159 points, second overall), but Australia – who didn’t even progress to the cup quarterfinals on that occasion, topped the points scoring with 177.

It was only during the 2018 edition where Fiji did the double – scoring the most points and winning the title – when they notched up 201 points over the weekend.

In 2019, the All Blacks won with 161 points. France was in the point-scoring stakes with 159, followed by Fiji on 158 and South Africa in fourth with 139.

Individual players staking a claim

Across the two editions of the 2019-20 World Series Sevens, Jean Pascal Barraque (France), Waisea Nacuqu (Fiji) and Justin Geduld (South Africa) lead the points-scoring charts with 73, 70 and 65 overall. Andrew Knewstubb from New Zealand is in fourth place with 63.

The top three try-scorers for the series so far – Jordon Conroy (Ireland), Sam Pecqueur (Scotland), Dan Norton (England) and  Waisea Nacuqu (Fiji)  with 11, nine and the latter pair on eight – all come form teams who have had mixed fortunes across the two weekends.

Frenchman Barraque led the way in Cape Town with six tries while South African’s Ruhan Nel, Scotland’s Pecqueur and Fiji’s Nacuqu all dotted down five times – further emphasising that leading the scoring charts doesn’t always mean the team is at an advantage.

World Series Sevens 2019-20: Standings after Cape Town

There have been just two tournaments so far, but the season is looking mighty intriguing. New Zealand and South Africa are level on 41 points overall, having exchanged the gold and silver medal in the first two editions.

Defending series champions, Fiji, are sitting in sixth spot, having failed to progress out of the pool stages on the opening weekend in Dubai.

Click here for the latest  full World Series Sevens standings.

World Series Sevens 2019-20: The show goes on

The tournament now moves to New Zealand, with the next round scheduled for 25 and 26 January 2020.

The Blitzboks last won the World Series Sevens in the 2017-8 season. On that occasion, they also won in Dubai, but finished third in Cape Town.

That season, the All Blacks also won gold in Cape Town and ended second in Dubai.

There will be a few changes to the squad with some players departing for Super Rugby duty and the Blitzboks have some good lessons to take from their first two outings.

“We had two good weeks, playing in two finals and winning one,” coach Neil Powell said after the weekend.

“That is a much better start than last season and bar the two lineouts we fluffed in the final, we had a good tournament. I certainly cannot fault the effort of the players.”

Powell said the longer than usual pre-season helped his team to prepare well for the opening legs of the World Series and winning 11 of their 12 matches in Dubai and Cape Town.

“We had the opportunity to get a proper pre-season in this year and that has helped a lot,” he said.

“It is unfortunate that we could not pull this one through as the Cape Town crowd has been amazing and we would have loved nothing more than winning in front of them.”

Springbok Sevens captain Siviwe Soyizwapi said the margins of error in finals are tighter than ever: “The difference between the two sides today was that New Zealand had one opportunity to score and they did, but we had at least three and only used one.

“It was a tough tournament physically for us, so it would have been nice if we could top the effort with another win, especially in Cape Town, which is by far my favourite tournament.

“But two finals in two tournaments cannot be faulted and was just reward for the effort the squad put in. Credit to New Zealand, who came out on top today,” added Soyizwapi.