Cape Town — Three months ago Cecil Afrika went down on bended knee in the wild and proposed to his longtime girlfriend Adrielle Armoed.
A couple of weeks ago, the South African Sevens legend had another rather important question to ask his now-fiance’ when he received a call from Blitzbok coach Neil Powell.
“My fiance’ and I were actually on our way to see wedding venues, check out menus, flowers and all those things when I got a phone call, and coach Neil asked me (to come out international retirement for the World Cup) … so I turned to my fiance’ … but deep down she knew I was going to say ‘Yes’ and now I am here and pretty excited. So, you could say I have got a couple of important ‘Yes’s’ in the last few months,” Afrika told the media ahead of his comeback at the Rugby World Cup Sevens starting on Friday in Cape Town.
Afrika (34) played in his 66th and ‘final' tournament for the Blitzboks two years ago in Vancouver. He has since been to the US and is currently playing for the Monaco 7’s team in the Extenso Super Sevens league.
The Principality of Monaco on the south coast of France certainly is the perfect fit for Afrika for he truly is Sevens royalty with the blue blood of two World Series-winning Blitzbok championships (2017 and 2018), Commonwealth Games gold (2014) and Olympic bronze (2016) medals listed among his crown jewels.
It is this vast experience that Powell, who ironically will be competing in his last Sevens tournament too before joining up with the Sharks as Director of Rugby, was seeking when he made the call to the veteran playmaker.
“I am truly grateful for the opportunity to be back. I never thought I would be here again. I am really looking forward to this upcoming weekend. The guys have accepted me with open arms. There is a lot of energy. The young guys are keeping me young. I am just trying to contribute both on and off the field,” Afrika said.
But what about the pressure of keeping the World Cup Sevens trophy here in South Africa, and in the process joining Siya Kolisi’s 15-man Bok team as world champions?
“Pressure is a privilege. Not all of us have this opportunity. It’s coach Neil’s last tournament, it could be my last tournament, and we take it for what it is and we try to channel all the energy in the right direction and not get distracted by what is going on around us,” he said.
“We are, of course, humans and we have to make sure we focus on the right things. We don’t play every single weekend before our family and friends and it is something quite unique and special, and now we have a World Cup in front of our loved ones, and hopefully we can send coach Neil away with a smile on his face and happiness in his heart because that’s what he deserves for all the years he has put into Sevens.”
The Blitzboks open their Rugby World Cup Sevens campaign against either Chile or Germany at DHL Stadium on Friday evening at 7:03pm.
IOL Sport