Dewald Human will again have to take control of matters for the Springboks Sevens side in the continued absence of Cecil Afrika and Branco Du Preez at the Rugby World Cup Sevens.
Cecil Afrika and Branco du Preez are established names, South African sevens legends, and the pint-sized Human from the little Karoo town of Uniondale knew he was going to have to bide his time to make his mark in the team.
His big chance eventually came this year at the Paris Sevens, where he had to fill the large boots of the injured Afrika and Du Preez at the final tournament of the 2017-18 HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series. He had played only a handful of tournaments before that, having made his debut the year before in Paris. Earlier this year, he had captained a young Blitzboks team in Hong Kong while the big guns were rested for the Commonwealth Games.
The Blitzboks had to win the Paris tournament and hope Fiji stumbled along the way to have a chance of winning back-to-back series titles. As it happened, Fiji were knocked out by England in the quarterfinals to give the Blitzboks a sniff.
But the South Africans were also struggling, barely making it out of their group after a shock defeat by Scotland and almost going to down to Russia. They eventually got through by smashing Canada 28-0 in their last pool match.
When Fiji went down in the quarters, they needed someone to stand up and be counted. The 1.68m Human turned out to be the unlikeliest of heroes.
Human assumed the role of playmaker like a seasoned veteran, and almost single-handedly pulled the South Africans over the line when it looked like they were ready to quit.
Human scored a try in the 15-0 quarterfinal win over Spain, and created and scored tries in the semi against New Zealand and in the final against England. He was also named man of the final and was the only South African included in the team of the tournament.
Human will again have to take control of matters for the Blitzboks in the continued absence of Afrika and Du Preez at the Rugby World Cup Sevens.
Coach Neil Powell is certainly backing the 23-year-old player, who a few years back was playing Super Rugby with the Southern Kings after emerging through the junior ranks at the Blue Bulls.
"Those are big shoes to fill [Africa and Du Preez], legends of the game," Human told KweséESPN.
"But a guy like Justin Geduld is also there and he helped me a lot in the last two tournaments to stay calm, because the pressure is not something new,"
Human seems to love the big occasions. His teammates and Powell say it's because of his tender age. But they certainly don't add to the pressure by telling him not to be himself. In fact, Human is being encouraged to play his natural attacking game and back himself to make the right decisions in the heat of battle.
"I don't really feel any pressure," Human said. "The coach always says, 'Go and enjoy yourself out there, you are still young and you are going to be make mistakes'. That is the only way to learn.
"The older guys have a bit of stress, probably to keep us in line. But we as the young players in the team just want to go out there and enjoy ourselves. The coach gives us a lot of freedom in the structure we play."
There will certainly be a bit more pressure on Human, because there will be little room for error in the new knockout format. Mistakes may cost a team matches on the sevens circuit, but an error of judgement in San Francisco this weekend could cost the title.
Human will also not be the unknown quantity he was in the previous couple of tournaments, and teams will be looking to shut him down to stop the Blitsboks from getting going on attack.
Human, though, is backing himself to do the business.
"The teams would have done their homework, but I just like to play what's in front of me," he said. "As a playmaker, I back myself to make the right decisions and to go out and express myself.
"It's awesome playing against big names, but I don't really focus on that. I just want to do my best for the team and to get the results at the end of the day.
"The thing most guys will have in the back of their mind is that if we lose one game we are out of it. But we don't focus on results, we focus on what we can do to get those results. In our training camps in Joburg and Mossel Bay we focused on what we can control and do the basics well."