France hung on in the face of a strong Springbok fightback to squeak to a 21-19 win at the Stade France that has changed the face of the Nations Championship and also breaks a 21 year drought in Paris for the hosts against the reigning world champions.
The result means that the Boks took just a losing bonus point from the game, which means that New Zealand are likely to displace them at the top of the southern hemisphere log as they should comfortably beat Wales in Cardiff on Saturday. As it stands, South Africa hold a one point advantage at the top. Their remaining game will be against Ireland in Dublin, while the All Blacks are set to travel from Cardiff to London in the final week of the league phase.
Last year the Boks fought back with 14 men from a sizeable early deficit and for a long time in the second half it looked like they might do so again. This time it was a 20 minute red card, with Jasper Wiese rightly being pinged by referee Andrea Piardi and the TMO for a dangerous cleanout that was raised to a red by the bunker. <p>
Both teams took turns to cop yellow cards and play with 14 men - there were four yellows and a red in the game - but it was the Bok indiscipline that allowed France to make the early inroads as they struggled for momentum and field position early doors. While the Bok forwards completely dominated the second half, and they had some unlucky calls from the referee, most specifically a collapsed French scrum near their line after a sequence of scrum penalties and a warning, France were the more accurate and clinical team in the first half.
CHALKED OFF TRY AND MISSED CONVERSION WERE COSTLY
That collapsed scrum should have been another penalty to the Boks and a yellow card to France but it appeared that Piardi, having made the official warning to France, copped out of that one. Towards the end of the first half a Kurt-Lee Arendse try where he came through off the back of the lineout to dot down near the posts was chalked off.
Arendse was adjudged to be a foot or two offside, meaning he had moved to soon, and it was probably the right decision but it was an example of the close margins that decided the game. The Boks would have been 21-14 down at halftime had the try stood, as it was only cancelled out once Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu had converted it, but instead they went into the break 14 points behind.
Unfortunately for them Wiese’s moment of madness came not long after the start of the second half, but initially it was 14 against 14 as Maxime Lucu had been carded for a high tackle on Feinberg-Mngomezulu towards the end of the first half. Bok lock Lood de Jager had been carded for a similar incident after 12 minutes, which was a slight case of de javu as De Jager was carded for a dangerous tackle in the first half of last year’s game, although that one was a red.
Another example of close margins was the missed Manie Libbok attempted conversion of Malcolm Marx’s driving maul try that was scored with eight minutes to go. France looked out on their feet at that point and had Libbok’s conversion found it’s mark, instead of shooting off to the left of the uprights, the scores would have been deadlocked and it would have been highly unlikely France would have won from there. Just because the Boks were so dominant at that point.
NEED TO RELY ON MORE THAN SCRUM AND MAUL IN CLINCH MOMENTS
However, seeing Libbok miss seemed to galvanise the French crowd and the French team, and it inspired them to bring the tenacity that allowed them to cling on in the face of relentless Bok attacking in the final minutes. If there was a lesson from those final minutes it was probably the confirmation that the Boks do need to get more accuracy to their attacking game and cannot just always rely on scrums and driving mauls.
The Boks might have been a bit loose in the opening half, with coach Rassie Erasmus electing to start with his back-up front row in a similar ruse to the one that caused so much chatter in the overseas media in the second test of the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series in Cape Town. Perhaps they were duped into trying to match the French tempo.
POSSIBLY DUPONT’S BEST GAME AGAINST SA
Certainly in the initial stages it was the French who brought the energy and the pace to the game, and Antoine Dupont, the French captain, interchanged with Maxime Lucu between scrumhalf and flyhalf, had a big say in the game. It was arguably Dupont’s best game against the French and he had a hand in the first try, with his pass to the short side after a sustained multi-phase attack sending wing Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang in at the right corner.
Lucu was on target with the conversion, and again seven minutes later, in the 23rd minute, when fullback Theo Attisogbe profited from a lucky bounce off a French player’s head by diving on the ball behind the tryline. The Boks scored a driving maul try to starting hooker Jan-Hendrik Wessels in the 30th minute but not long after that the X-factor of Dupont and wing Louis Bielle-Biarrey was on show, as Dupont produced the excellent grubber that Bielle-Biarrey chased down.
The Boks bossed the scrums, even when the back-up players were performing the role of starting front row but particularly once Ox Nche, Malcolm Marx and Wilco Louw had come on just before halftime, and it looked like they had France at their mercy at stages of the second half.
But they just weren’t accurate enough and ultimately they found that they had just been left with too much to do when they trailed by 14 points at halftime.
It was a good and important win for France, which will do wonders for their confidence if they do end up facing the Boks again in the knock-out stages of the World Cup or even, as is still possible, if they meet again in the Finals Weekend of the Championship two weeks hence. However, it was hard not to escape the feeling that, much like they did in the loss to the All Blacks at the start of the RGR series, this was a game where the Boks conspired against themselves as much as their opponents won it. It is unusual to enjoy physical dominance to the extent the Boks did in that second half and not win the game.
Scores
France 21 - Tries: Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang, Theo Attisogbe and Louis Bielle-Biarrey; Conversions: Maxime Lucu 3. South Africa 19 - Tries: Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Cobus Reinach and Malcolm Marx; Conversions: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu 2.