Quewin Nortje will make a first appearance for the Springbok Sevens team in the 2026 season next weekend after being named in the squad to travel east to Hong Kong for the first of the three HSBC SVNS World Championship tournaments.
The 23-year-old flyer had a frustrating time with injuries this season and missed all six regular stops of the HSBC SVNS Series, but he is now fit and ready and will be an important cog in the Blitzbok attack at the Cathay Pacific/HSBC SVNS Hong Kong, with a strike rate of 32 tries in 12 tournaments.
The inclusion of Nortje, whose last appearance was at the inaugural World Championship tournament in Los Angeles, where the Blitzboks won the title in May 2025, is one of three changes to the squad that completed the series in New York last month with a fourth tournament win out of six played.
Christie Grobbelaar, Dewald Human and Gino Cupido were ruled out after picking up injuries on the North American leg, where they also won in Vancouver, with Zain Davids and Jayden Nell coming in to complete the travelling squad for the tournament at Kai Tak Sports Park, where 12 teams are divided into three pools of four.
Davids was rested for the North American leg and Nell replaced Grobbelaar in before the New York tournament, where he did enough on debut to convince Springbok Sevens head coach Philip Snyman that he can be trusted in the cauldron of Hong Kong, the only venue where the Blitzboks are yet to win a title.
Apart from Nell and David Brits, who will also disembark at Hong Kong International Airport for the first time, the rest of the squad have 38 combined visits to the famous Far East city, and enter the World Championship with good momentum, having won the last three tournaments.
Snyman said they had to go back to zero once they returned and started building momentum towards the three World Championship events, in Hong Kong, Valladolid and Bordeaux, at their Stellenbosch training base.
“We started over; this is a new challenge and we have some players coming back, so we had to align first and the best way to do that is to start at the basics,” said Snyman.
“We worked hard in training, pushed each other very hard and reminded ourselves of our objectives at the start of this campaign. Doing well in Hong Kong was one of them, so we know what we are training for.
“Nothing has changed from our competitive excellence mindset in camp, so we will again travel with a quiet determination to build this team into one of the best in the world.
“Everyone is working towards that goal, whether he is selected for a particular trip or not. Someone like Quewin worked very hard over a couple of months in that role and now will be ready to contribute as we know he can.”
The squad will depart for Hong Kong on Thursday.
Hong Kong pools (men)
A: South Africa, Argentina, Spain, Uruguay
B: Fiji, France, Great Britain, Germany
C: New Zealand, Australia, Kenya, USA
Blitzbok pool schedule (all matches live on SuperSport, SA times):
Friday, 17 April
05h16: Uruguay
08h49: Spain
Saturday, 18 April
06h13: Argentina
Springbok Sevens squad for Hong Kong:
#2 Ryan Oosthuizen – 62 tournaments, 270 points (54 tries)
#3 Impi Visser (captain) – 50 tournaments, 240 points (48 tries)
#4 Zain Davids – 57 tournaments, 255 points (51 tries)
#7 Ronald Brown – 24 tournaments, 491 points (51 tries, 118 conversions)
#8 Selvyn Davids – 46 tournaments, 766 points (102 tries, 128 conversions, 1 penalty goal)
#11 Siviwe Soyizwapi – 64 tournaments, 800 points (160 tries)
#12 Shilton van Wyk – 32 tournaments, 355 points (71 tries)
#14 Quewin Nortje – 12 tournaments, 160 points (32 tries)
#15 Donavan Don – 14 tournaments, 113 points (21 tries, 4 conversions)
#16 Sebastiaan Jobb – 8 tournaments, 70 points (14 tries)
#19 David Brits – 15 tournaments, 60 points (12 tries)
#24 Tristan Leyds – 17 tournaments, 193 points (25 tries, 34 conversions)
#31 Jayden Nell – 1 tournament, 0 points
Spitfire
The oldest cricketer to play the game is England’s Wilfred Rhodes while the oldest living Test cricketer is South Africa’s John Watkins. Rhodes was 52 years old while Watkins (born 1923) is in his late 90s. Rhodes also holds a distinction in first class cricket, taking down over 4,000 wickets.
Phoenix Sparrow
Brian O’Driscoll, an Irish rugby legend, scored a record 46 tries in the Six Nations Championship and held the record for the most international appearances as captain (83) until being surpassed by Richie McCaw.