When your 8 year old son and 11 year old daughter get excited about the Springboks playing a test at 10pm on a Saturday night, and they cannot keep their eyes off the screen for almost the full 80 minutes, then you just realise again how special it is to be able to watch a great game like rugby, especially when it is played by a team with such a rich history!
19 - 10
The Springboks came to France with no win in the last 16 years on French home-soil, but that did not seem to be on their mind last night, as they managed to go up 7-0 within the first two minutes of the game. JP Pietersen charged down an attempted clearance kick from a French player, which bounced kindly for him and all he had to do was fall on the ball in the in-goal area.
Eben Etzebeth left the field after about 15 minutes with what seemed to be an ankle injury and veteran lock, Bakkies Botha replaced him. From here on to the end of the game the Springboks put up a display that included some of the biggest hits you will ever see, an extremely strong scrummage effort, and through their very solid defence, they created at least two scoring opportunities, which was rather controversially disallowed by the TMO.
The first scoring opportunity was disallowed because the TMO judged that Morne Steyn knocked on before Jean de Villiers scooped up the ball on the bounce and went straight through a gap to offload to Fourie on his outside, who ran over the line for what seemed like a well-deserved try. From certain angles, it certainly looked as if the ball went backwards, or at least to the side from Steyn's hand, but the TMO felt differently!
The second "try" was more controversial in my opinion, with Francois Louw clearly falling on the ball after a French player kicked the ball into his own goal area, and as he tried to fall on it first, he clearly missed the ball and Louw appeared to get a controlled hand on the ball first. However, the TMO again made a decision against the Springboks.
In my view the Bokke deserved this hard-fought victory and the French, although throwing numerous attacks at the men in Green and Gold, never truly looked as if they were going to win the encounter. They did score a "soft" try just before the half time whistle, but after that it never seemed as if they could cross the opposition's goal line again.
Although the entire Springbok team played a hard, well-executed, and typical Springbok game of rugby, I do feel that the following players put in stand-out performances that are worth mentioning:
Bismarck du Plessis - He was excellent in all departments and his scrumming effort was exceptional to help put the French front row under enormous pressure.
Bakkies Botha - The "old bones" in the team played his heart out for a full 60 minutes and made a huge difference in defence and at the rucks and mauls especially.
Flip van der Merwe - Led the line-outs well and was present in all aspects of the game.
Duane Vermeulen - His becoming one of the great Springbok number 8's and put in another very solid performance, in defence and on attack.
JP Pietersen - He was, with Willie le Roux, probably the stand-out backs on the night, scoring the only try for the Boks through the pressure he put on the French kicker, and he was good on defence and looked for work more as in the previous two tests as well.
Willie Le Roux - You just have to get him into your team, don't you? He probably could have scored if he held onto the ball instead of trying to offload to Habana. Was solid under the high ball and broke the line with his attacking runs on several occasions.
Share your best (or worst) moments from this test encounter and tell us who was your stand-out players on the night?
