South Africa Test convert Francois Hougaard admitted he experienced a trip into the unknown on Friday as he came away from his first taste of competitive sevens rugby in Dubai.
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Hougaard, 27, won 35 15-a-side caps before he signed up for the limited-players squad which is set to take part in the discipline’s inaugural Olympic running at the Rio 2016 Games.
The scrum-half is joined by fellow convert Juan de Jongh this weekend as the Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens holders lay the foundations for a revamp which is expected to include Rugby World Cup superstars Bryan Habana and centre Damian de Allande in future HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series events.
“It is an amazing feeling, but at the same time you can find yourself vulnerable on defence,” said Hougaard, about the extra space on the field.
.@Blitzboks welcome Test stars to squad for @Dubai7s: https://t.co/EYMxUvY6Vn @mattmonaghan360 pic.twitter.com/ILu3XUIO3K
— Sport360° (@Sport360) December 2, 2015
“If you play against players with good feet who can utilise that space, that can make it so difficult. That is where you have to learn to adapt to the system. We have saying which is ‘you can beat the individual but never beat the system’.
“It always looks so easy when you watch on TV, it’s just a bunch of guys running around. But it is actually quite technical, if you start getting into the system.
“You get used to it, when you work as a system. All of a sudden, it is quite easy and you do not work quite as hard.”
The duo helped Neil Powell’s men claim a perfect three wins from three in Pool B to set up a quarterfinal clash against the United States on Saturday.
Unlike his counterpart, 14-timescapped Springbok De Jongh had tasted sevens rugby before. But with his last experience being in 2008, he declared there was some rust.
“I am really excited to be back,” the 27-year-old centre said. “It has been a really long time. I have missed the whole set-up. As for the results, we have a lot of mistakes to learn from as tomorrow is the big day and hopefully we can gel more as a team. Seven years is a long time and it is all new again. The game has changed a little bit.
“The players on the circuit are something else. I need to put everything behind me, I am not even focusing on that at the moment.
“Hopefully we can keep pushing. Every match and every training session is important. As a team and individual players we are not thinking about the Olympics too much.”
The pair have joined a stellar team which finished second in the 2014-15 World Series and boasts 2015 World Rugby Sevens Player of the Year Werner Kok.
“It is a privilege as someone who has been a Springbok to play with the Blitzboks,” said Hougaard. “It is an amazing experience.”
