Cape Town - Despite a fairly heavy loss to New Zealand in their final Pool D match on day one of the Vancouver Sevens, Blitzboks coach Neil Powell believes his team will be stronger in the knock-out stages of the tournament.

READ: Powell - Blitzboks outplayed physically by NZ

South Africa saw New Zealand score two early tries in the first three minutes and race to a 21-0 lead at half-time.

Tries from Dylan Sage and Kyle Brown brought some respectability to the score but New Zealand crosse for two further tries to win 33-14.

But Powell believes that they will come back stronger, especially in terms of physicality on the second day of the competition.

“The nice thing about sevens is that you do get another chance the next day, so we will have to improve in that area. We also need to defend well if we want to make it into the final four,” said Powell.

The squad will receive a boost with the return of Ruhan Nel who sat out the New Zealand encounter.

“He had a bit of a tight hamstring, so we decided to give him a break. In all, I am happy that the whole squad had a good run on the first day,” Powell said.