Ken Borland

Springbok Sevens players would appear to be hot property in South African rugby at the moment, none more so than Stedman Gans after his performance at outside centre for the Bulls last weekend, and the 23-year-old believes the way the tempo of the game is increasing, the Blitzbokke will come into the picture more and more.

Gans was instrumental in a startling display of dazzling skills and pace by the Bulls backline as they ran in six of the seven tries they scored against the Sharks on SuperFan Saturday, and his reading of the game – a vital attribute for No.13s – was superb.

“Playing tempo is very important now and that’s how you get the defence out of breath and then take that space, that’s when guys like Kurt-Lee Arendse and myself come into it. From Sevens we’ve learnt how to manipulate defences and it’s how the XVs game is evolving, the tempo is picking up and you’re going to see Sevens players make more and more of an impact.

“At the Sevens squad, getting off the ground quickly is very important to coach Neil Powell so it’s almost second nature for me, and now it’s something that coach Jake White measures you on as well. It was also his plan from the start for myself and Cornal Hendricks [inside centre] to feed off each other. We both like running and offloading and we have a big pack that’s going to create space for us to play that running game,” Gans said on Monday.

Apart from the young Sevens tyros sparkling in the backline, White has surrounded them with extremely experienced Springboks in 36-year-old flyhalf Morne Steyn, 37-year-old fullback Gio Aplon and 32-year-old Hendricks. Gans said he has fed off their wisdom and composure and it is one of the reasons the Bulls were able to hit the ground running and produce the sort of attacking verve that has seldom been seen from the home side at Loftus Versfeld.

“Gio played like a 25-year-old and I’ve spent a lot of time with him. He’s been around the block a couple of times and he brings calmness – he and Morne Steyn. I’ve loved learning from their experience. We were very happy with how we started and we were pretty unrusty. We looked at the New Zealand teams and how they played after Lockdown and we wanted to do the same.

“In those six months out, the first thing was to get our conditioning back, then our skills and then get the contact in as soon as possible after it was allowed. Doing our jobs while in fatigue, both in defence and attack, has been a real focus. Defensively, for a first hit-out, it wasn’t too bad either, but we saw how the New Zealand teams approached coming back and we really took inspiration from that, just come out and fire and trust yourself in the system,” Gans said.