The 24-year-old used the two weeks of down time to the utmost and got a lot done since returning from Vancouver a fortnight ago.

“It is not often that we get so much down time when playing on the World Series, so this came at an ideal time for me, although not in the circumstances I would have preferred,” Oosthuizen told springboks.rugby

In the normal flow of events, Oosthuizen and his fellow Blitzboks would have been given a couple of days off to recover from the long haul following the North American leg of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, before getting back into camp at the Stellenbosch Academy of Sport.

This time, they arrived back in Cape Town with the news that they needed to self-isolate as per government protocols for persons returning from abroad.

“I had some assignments to do and I have a wedding to plan,” said the part-time law student and husband-to-be for Chané Olivier.

“I actually had five assignments that I had to do and managed to complete them all, so I am pretty pleased about that. It is not often that we have so much free time and I was pretty happy about that.”

The wedding is planned for October and the postponement of the World Series tournaments in Singapore and Hong Kong has thrown the excited couple a bit of a curve ball.

“The way things are planned at the moment, the team will be leaving for Singapore and Hong Kong on the day of our wedding, so a couple of them will probably not be able to attend our wedding,” Oosthuizen lamented.

“I have managed to finish a lot of the arrangements with Chané in the last couple of days and that helps a lot, knowing it is done.”

Oosthuizen is still on a strict individual training programme that was compiled by the Springbok Sevens conditioning coach, Ghafoer Luckan, so apart from the studies and wedding planning, he looked after his physical condition.

“Overall, I certainly didn’t waste my time in the last two weeks. We have a challenging time ahead but by pulling together and staying positive when things are not going as planned – something we often experience on the playing fields of the World Series – you can get through it.”