After Pumas, it's All Blacks for Boks
Mar del Plata - South Africa and New Zealand look set to meet in the semifinals of the rugby World Cup sevens tournament here on Sunday.
So far, both have had relatively easy passages to the knock-out stages and the only team in the Springboks' way and a semifinal spot is host nation Argentina, whom the Boks are scheduled to meet in the quarterfinals.
The Pumas came close to upstaging champions Fiji on Friday but experience and calm heads triumphed over a 7 000-strong partisan home crowd.
Argentina, captained by Test scrumhalf Agustin Pichot, are a side that can cause heartbreaks for opponents. And South Africa are aware of this.
Australia and Fiji are likely to play in the other semi, provided things go according to plan.
"We saw what Argentina nearly did against Fiji and they could have won that match had they not made mistakes at crucial times," said coach Norman Mbiko.
"We are preparing for a physical battle with them. Obviously discipline will play a big part in these knock out games because we know about the yellow card system," said Mbiko.
The Springboks cannot complain about the start they have had to this tournament. A three-out-of-three record on day one on Friday and two wins expected yesterday against Georgia and France and Warren Britz's men will be hoping to peak at the right time today.
South Africa have used, as planned, the acres of space out wide to good effect. But in between, there was some individual brilliance as well, most notably from the little dynamo - Lions flyhalf Andre Pretorius.
He entertained the crowd, among them his parents, at the Jose Maria Minella Stadium with his deft footwork that will have made Michael Flatley proud, quick hands and excellent vision, often creating try-scoring opportunities.
He was not tryline shy himself, scoring three in two games - against Canada (2) and one against the Cook Islands on day one.
His introduction to the unforgiving nature of the sevens game was evident after their second game on day one - in the opener against Chinese Taipei.
Pretorius left the field with a gashed left eye - courtesy of an elbow charge from a Chinese Taipei player. The wound required stitches and although the eye was still swollen at the end of the day's play, Pretorius said afterwards that it wasn't serious.
"When it comes to one-on-one, the odds are he will beat his opponents virtually every time. We must look after him because he is a special sevens player," enthused Mbiko of Pretorius.
Fiji captain and veteran sevens specialist Waisele Serevi can attest to hostile treatment.
He was hit by an 'object' twice in the match against Argentina but said he would not "make a serious issue of it."
"We expected Argentina to come at us," he said of their Pool A match. "We kept calm and I told my team that we should expect these kind of games because all the teams want to beat us," he added.
Meanwhile, injuries have taken their toll on the participating countries with Uruguay, the tournament's reserve team, being drained. The tournament rules state that the host nation - in this case Argentina - have the right to select a country to act as the reserve team from which teams running out of players can draw.
Japan, Samoa, Portugal and Hong Kong have all called for reinforcements from the reserve team.
There were some heated matches on day one which resulted in four players, including New Zealand captain Eric Rush being yellow-carded for foul play.
Korea's Jong-man Chun became the first player on Friday to be suspended for the rest of the tournament when he was found guilty of "manhandling" Australian referee Scott Young after Korea's Pool A match against Argentina.
Play starts at 9pm SA time on Sunday. SA's quarterfinal match is at 12.20am (SA time).