The South African U17 Sevens team finished with silver at the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, Senegal on Monday, beating Argentina 24-12 in the semi-final before losing 26-19 to France in the gold medal match.
Against Argentina, the SA U17s trailed 0-12 before staging a complete turnaround. Darnell Delport's try late in the first half reduced the deficit to 5-12, then Kingsley Pule and a Rosco Williams brace — all with Jake Dave conversions — completed a 24-12 win.
France, who had dismantled Canada 58-0 in the other semi-final, opened the scoring inside two minutes in the final. Delport levelled briefly at 5-7, but two further converted French tries pushed the score to 21-5 at half-time.
The fightback began with two minutes remaining when Dave scored and converted to make it 21-12. From the restart, an injured SA player was forced from the field, but Dave seized on the resulting scrum to ghost through the French defence and convert his own try, cutting the gap to 21-19 with a minute left. A mistake at the ensuing restart allowed France to score on the hooter and seal the gold 26-19.