By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Photo Credit: SA Rugby.
France ended a 21-year wait for a victory over South Africa at the Stade de France on Friday night, surviving a second-half Springbok onslaught to claim a dramatic 21-19 Nations Championship victory in Paris.
It was a game of two halves in Saint-Denis. France dominated the first half to go into the break 21-7 up, with a sensational try from Louis Bielle-Biarrey the pick of the bunch. With the last try of the first half, he got on the end of a perfectly-weighted Antoine Dupont kick into space which stayed in play near the left corner, allowing the winger to finish off.
France were given three yellow cards and South Africa were given one yellow and one 20-minute red card, contributing to the ever-changing dynamics in the Test.
Rassie Erasmus made a late front-row switch, with Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Gerhard Steenekamp and Thomas du Toit starting, while Marx, Wilco Louw and Ox Nché moved to the bench.
French rival Fabien Galthié also made an alteration after hooker Julien Marchand withdrew following injury in the warm-up and Peato Mauvaka promoted to the run-on XV.
Defeat ended the Boks’ unbeaten run in the competition and dented their position at the top of the southern hemisphere standings ahead of the finals weekend at Twickenham on 27-29 November.
Erasmus was frank about his assessment of the game and said: “France played really well and we didn’t, so I can’t find a lot of excuses. They took their opportunities when they got them and we didn’t.
“It’s probably a cliché, but I definitely think we had enough opportunities and there were simple tries we could have scored with one last pass, and perhaps one or two wrong decisions, such as not kicking for the corner and rather expecting the referee to give four penalties in a row.”
“In front of a crowd like this you might feel you have dominance, but it’s just human not to keep on penalising the home team if they’ve already got a card or two. But in the end, it comes down to the fact that they played well, and we didn’t.”
Erasmus said the yellow card to Lood de Jager, for a dangerous tackle, and Jasper Wiese’s 20-minute red card for a dangerous clean were costly.
“I don’t think any of it was intentional, but I agree it should have been a card,” he said.
“We can’t moan about that, but I didn’t think anybody flew in to try and hurt somebody. When we got the red card, we were a little under the pump.”
The Bok coach added: “If you must look for a positive, it’s the effort, the grind and the fight back. After about 30 minutes they didn’t score again, and we scored even though we were down to 14 men for most of the game. The frustration is that the discipline cost us. To lose by two points, or any number, is terrible.”
“They had the seven-pointers. One was beautiful and the other bounced off a player’s head, and no defensive system can stop that. With all the things that went wrong, we played ourselves into that hole. It wasn’t that they forced us to play that way.”
“We were uncharacteristically a little tentative tonight, and when something like that happens it’s probably the coaching staff. When we got the opportunity, we were a little bit hesitant, and I have to find out why that happened.”
Reacting to the contest as a whole, Erasmus said it felt like a fast and intense Test: “Both teams scored three tries, and I thought it was a great contest. We just didn’t play well enough. The reality is that it’s not nice sitting on the losing side.”
France captain Antoine Dupont said, “Obviously, when you beat the number one team in the world – they were number one for the last eight years, and it was not for nothing. The crowd was with us today; we felt that from La Marseillaise at the beginning of the game, and we felt them during the entire game, and it really helped us during the whole game.”
The All Blacks, who take on 10th-ranked Wales in Cardiff on Saturday, have moved to No 1, while France have climbed above Ireland into third place. Ireland face Fiji in Dublin on Saturday before hosting the Boks next weekend.
France – Tries: Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang, Théo Attissogbe, Louis Bielle-Biarrey. Conversions: Maxime Lucu (3).
Springboks – Tries: Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Cobus Reinach, Malcolm Marx. Conversions: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu (2).