DURBAN – According to Impi Visser, the BlitzBoks always have each other’s backs - on and off the field; and it’s something the new Springbok Sevens forward learnt in a rather unusual way.
Visser, 23, made his Bok Sevens debut at the Dubai leg of the 2018/19 World Sevens Series last weekend.
Coach Neil Powell’s men finished sixth after losing to Fiji in the fifth-place final. And while that is the game that stood out for Visser, it’s not in those 14 minutes that the Fifteens centre turned Sevens forward was made to believe that they all look out for each other.
Visser, who was a member of Tuks’ Varsity Cup-winning campaign - he missed out on the final and the young BlitzBoks’ trip to Hong Kong due to injury - is a final-year mechanical engineering student and wrote his last exam from his hotel room in Dubai.
The Blitzboks hit the gym shortly after arriving in Cape Town earlier this week. Photo: @Blitzboks on twitter
“It hasn’t been confirmed but I think it went well,” he said. “I wrote my last exam in my room in Dubai last Thursday. I believe it went well. Hopefully I can put my studies behind me now and just focus on my rugby.
“I studied mechanical engineering. I’m not even going to lie to you, it was tough... and a lot of long hours. But you just have to switch on mentally. If you get the opportunity to study you should take it, and if you can do both, that’s ideal.
“Luckily the coaches accommodated me. We look after each other on and off the field.”
Impi Visser in the colours of Tuks during a Varsity Cup match at Tuks Stadium. Photo: Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix
The BlitzBoks, injected with a number of youngsters following the departure of a number of stalwarts, will be looking to right the wrongs of Dubai in front of a home crowd in Cape Town on Saturday and Sunday.
And Visser is confident that the team have learnt from the mistakes they made in the opening tournament and that they’ll execute the basics better at Cape Town Stadium.
“I don’t think our focus was so much on results, it was more on our processes and roles and responsibilities," he said. "It didn’t go too well in Dubai, but there are a lot of things we learnt that we can take in to the Cape Town tournament.
"We can only build on our performances in Dubai,” he added.