The South African national rugby sevens team, commonly known as the Springbok Sevens, competes in the

World Rugby Sevens Series The SVNS, known as the HSBC SVNS for sponsorship reasons, is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. Organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season as the IRB World ...

, the

Rugby World Cup Sevens Rugby World Cup Sevens (RWCS) was the former quadrennial world championship of rugby sevens, a variant of rugby union. Organised by World Rugby, it consisted of men's and women's tournaments, and was the highest level of competition in the sport ...

, the

Summer Olympic Games The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The 1896 Summer Olympics, inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, ...

and the

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games is a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations, which consists mostly, but not exclusively, of territories of the former British Empire. The event was first held in 1930 ...

. Overall, the team has won the

4 times, as well as having won 40 tournaments in the series.

History

After readmission to international sport following the ending of the apartheid ban, the team played their first sevens series in the 1993

Hong Kong Sevens The Hong Kong Sevens ( zh, t=香港國際七人欖球賽, link=no) is a rugby sevens tournament held annually in Hong Kong on a weekend in late March or early April. Considered the premier tournament on the World Rugby Sevens Series competiti ...

, and also participated in the

1993 Rugby World Cup Sevens The 1993 Rugby World Cup Sevens was held at Murrayfield in Edinburgh, Scotland, in April 1993. This tournament was the inaugural Rugby World Cup Sevens tournament. The International Rugby Board invited the established rugby union nations but al ...

. They also played in the Hong Kong Sevens for the next two seasons. In 1996, they also took part in the

Punta Del Este Sevens The Uruguay Sevens, branded as Seven Punta, is an annual international rugby sevens tournament. Currently held in the capital Montevideo, it was hosted as the Punta del Este Sevens in the resort city of the same name for three decades from 1989 ...

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

and the

Dubai Sevens The Dubai 7s is an annual rugby sevens and social event held at The Sevens Stadium in Dubai, UAE. Founded in 1970, the event is the longest running sports event in the Middle East. Events The Dubai 7s has six competitions each year: * World ...

. They participated in the

1997 Rugby World Cup Sevens The 1997 Rugby World Cup Sevens was the second edition of the Rugby World Cup Sevens tournament and the first to be held in Hong Kong. It was the last major sporting event to be held in the then British dependency before the transfer of soverei ...

the following year as well as in 1998, they played three South American tournaments – the Mar Del Plata Sevens in

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

, the Punta Del Este Sevens and the Viña del Mar Sevens in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

. 1999 saw them participate in the Mar Del Plata Sevens, the Santiago Sevens in Chile, the Fiji Sevens, the

, the

Japan Sevens The Japan Sevens, also known as the Tokyo Sevens, is an annual rugby sevens tournament held at the Chichibunomiya Rugby Stadium in Tokyo, Japan. It was a part of the Sevens World Series from 2000 to 2001 and from 2012 to 2015. History The fir ...

and the

Paris Sevens The France Sevens, also called the Paris Sevens, is an annual international rugby sevens tournament that is one of ten competitions on the annual World Rugby Sevens Series. The France Sevens is generally held in May or June on the weekend foll ...

. At the end of 1999, the first

(then the IRB Sevens World Series) started and the team have been participating in that series ever since. In addition to the Sevens Series, they also played in the

, the

World Games The World Games are an international multi-sport event comprising sports and sporting disciplines that are not contested in the Olympic Games. They are usually held every four years, one year after a Summer Olympic Games, over the course of 11 d ...

and, from 2016 onwards, the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

. The team's nickname, "Blitzboks", is derived from "blitz" an Afrikaans word meaning lightning, and the derivative of Springbok ("Bok"), the official emblem of the South African rugby team.

Tournament history

Summer Olympics

Rugby World Cup Sevens

Commonwealth Games

World Games

World Rugby Sevens Series

Series Record

Series tournament wins

South Africa won the following tournaments on the Sevens World Series since its inception in 1999–2000: 43 Tournament wins (up to 04/05/2025)

Players

Current squad

The following players have been selected to represent South Africa during the

2024–25 SVNS The 2024–25 SVNS is the 26th annual series of rugby sevens tournaments for national sevens teams, known as the SVNS. It will take place between November 2024 and June 2025. The SVNS has been run by World Rugby since 1999. Teams and format The ...

tournament beginning in November 2024. Note: Caps reflect the total number of SVNS events competed in as of the 2025 USA Sevens.

Records and statistics

Previous squads

The previous South African Sevens squads are as follows:

Player records

The following tables show the leading career South Africa players based on statistics from the

. Players in bold are still active.

Award winners

The following South Africa Sevens players have been recognised at the

World Rugby Awards The World Rugby Awards are given out annually by World Rugby (until November 2014, known as the International Rugby Board), the worldwide governing body for rugby union, for major achievements in the sport. The idea of rewarding excellence in ru ...

since 2004:

References

External links

Official website

WorldRugby profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:South Africa national rugby sevens team National rugby sevens teams sevens

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