Blitzbok star and World Sevens Player of the Year Seabelo Senatla has confirmed that he will be joining the Stormers in Super Rugby in the new year.
Senatla signed a joint contract between SA Rugby and the WP Rugby Union for the next three years to play in both sevens and 15-man rugby.
But after helping the Bok Sevens to their third win of the day at the Dubai tournament on Friday – he scored six tries in three matches – Senatla said that he was excited about pushing to make his “dream” of reaching the Springbok squad in 2017.
Senatla was a tourist with the Boks on the 2014 end-of-year tour, but didn’t get any game time. Sevens had always taken preference during his career up to now, especially due to the Rio Olympics.
But following the struggles endured by Allister Coetzee’s team this year, they could do with a deadly finisher such as Senatla.
Mind you, the Stormers and coach Robbie Fleck will be delighted too, as the Cape side had to deal with several injuries in their backline this season and went down badly to the Chiefs in the playoffs.
“Very much, very much (looking forward to joining the Stormers). I believe that’s the second phase of my life… my rugby career, not my life! Looking forward to playing a little bit of 15s, and jamming a little bit and see how it goes,” Senatla said in a TV interview.
“Ultimately, you want to see yourself in that Springbok 15s jersey – it has been a dream – so I think that’s taking the right steps to actually pursuing that.”
The 23-year-old will turn out for the Blitzboks at the Cape Town Sevens next weekend as well before beginning his pre-season with the Stormers, who will take on the Bulls in their opening Super Rugby fixture at Newlands on February 25.
Before that, though, Senatla hopes to give the Bok Sevens some joy in Dubai and Cape Town, and he did just that with his six touchdowns on Friday. “Well, I’m trying to (make the most of it). In our last game (a 19-17 win over USA), we were playing against ourselves a little bit there and made it difficult for ourselves. But I have awesome playmakers in the team and it’s kind of a sin not to do that hey,” he said.
“We’ve got three out of three, but if we’re honest with ourselves, we’re not quite happy with the last one there. We slipped a little bit. But you’ve got to move around and it’s good to be number one in our group, that’s what we aimed for.”