November 17th, 2009 by Andrew Thomson

After the stunning win by the Leicester Tigers over South Africa on November 6th, France extended their 11-year-long unbeaten home record to 12, with a 20-13 win over SA on November 13th.

South Africa brought its usual physical game to France, and all France did was hold up a mirror; for every burst of power or speed, Les Bleus simply gave it back, knocking lumps out of the SA backline to allow Clerc to touch down for France’s try in the first half , a quick answer to Smit’s fortunate opening try.  Clerc’s speed rattled the Boks, with Habana lucky to escape a ban for kicking him on the ground and Steyn then sin-binned for trying to trip him up.  11-13 down at the break, France went ahead with two more penalties and South African discpline, already found wanting in the first half, faltered again with Kankowski in the sin-bin for handling the ball on the floor.  Morgan Parra couldn’t capitalise on SA’s indiscretion with a penalty, but struck again two minutes from full time to nail the scoreboard at 20-13, meaning SA didn’t pick up a single point in 40 minutes.

SA coach Peter de Villiers blamed the Boks’ under-par performance on the poor singing, claimed to be deliberate, of his country’s national anthem.  When it was pointed out that the singer was a Paris-based South African who had been chosen to sing the anthem by diplomats at the SA Embassy in Paris, it is not known whether he scratched around for another excuse.  Although magnanimously for him he did concede that “you can’t play the game without the ball. They won the contest on the floor and we lost too much ball in contact. They were the strongest side.”

SA plays Saracens on Tuesday in advance of Tests against Ireland and Italy.  Tickets for these games – and more – are available to buy and compare at tixdaq.com.