All-African men’s final in the FISU 7s Gold Match.

The 2026 FISU World University Championship Rugby Sevens in Stellenbosch will have an all-African final after Uganda and South Africa produced impressive semi-final performances at the Danie Craven Stadium in the opening half of the final day. Uganda dramatically edged Argentina to continue their unbeaten run in the tournament, before hosts South Africa overcame Japan to book their place in the men’s final in front of a vocal home crowd.

South Africa head coach Patrick Ross-Allen had challenged his players to treat every match as a final, while Uganda’s coach had set his sights firmly on a podium finish after the team’s sixth-place finish at the previous edition.

For South Africa, the 34-0 victory over Norway was followed by an emphatic 45-5 win over Chile, and the coach believes his players are beginning to find the spark required to make a deep run in the tournament.

“We went back last night and spoke about it, had a chat about it this morning as well,” said Ross-Allen. “A couple of things that we needed to fix, and I think we did it today. It was a great game against Chile, not taking anything away from Chile, but the boys just switched on at the right time.”

The hosts have also been able to draw on individual brilliance, with Lukhangela Tshayi, Aaron Swartz, Leachim Adams, Simthembile Zozi, and Keno Alexander among the players making an impact in both attack and defence. Patrick, however, believes the strength of his side lies in the contribution of the entire squad.

“Those players are special, they’re very special, but I think the whole squad has got an X-factor,” he said. “We’ve got a squad of 12 that’s got X-factor, and we also said, let’s make each other great on the field.”

South Africa finished as runners-up in the 2024 edition and will now look to go one better, but Patrick insists the team will not look beyond its next challenge.

“Every game we take it as a final,” he said. “We just need to believe in ourselves and take every game as it is.”

Uganda, meanwhile, head into the final unbeaten after topping their pool, with their head coach, Leonard Lubambula, crediting careful preparation and a willingness to adapt for their progress. Having studied their opponents closely, Uganda produced a disciplined performance against Japan, controlling the tempo and using their physicality to disrupt the defending champions.

“We had to do a video analysis of about one and a half hours analysing how they play,” said Lubambula. “We managed their tempo, we had to make them run onto our tempo, and we also went physical on them.

“Our target was to get onto the podium,” he said. “We want to get onto the podium, not just to be fourth.”

Check all the fixtures from Day 3 here:
Men: https://fisu.sportscap.co.za/integrations/fixtures?id=13&tournamentId=609&hidebackButton=true
Women: https://fisu.sportscap.co.za/integrations/fixtures?id=13&tournamentId=608&hidebackButton=true