Damian Willemse: We wanted to win it for Pieter-Steph

Du Toit was red-carded only 11 minutes into the contest in Marseille after diving into a ruck and making head contact with France centre Jonathan Danty - with a push from a teammate in the back doing little to help the situation.

Moments later, the World Cup winner was seen close to tears on the sidelines with his head in his hands, clearly bitterly disappointed at having let his teammates down.

Speaking after the match, flyhalf Damian Willemse said Du Toit's anguish only made them more determined to play as hard as they could despite being a man down.

"No one wants to let the team and the Springboks down," Willemse said.

"We all feel for him. He is a great player and he's one of our key players in the game. We said as a team that when he got the red card, we were going to play for him.

"We were going to try and fix things. The boys really did, and I think the boys were really unlucky with giving it away at the end.

"The overall feeling was that we were still in the game. He was done, but we said we were going to play for him."

The Boks hung in superbly until France also found themselves reduced to 14 men following a red card to Antoine Dupont in the second half, and though the match eventually went the home side's way, the outcome could easily have been a different one.

The Springboks will now look to lift themselves with crucial clashes against Italy and England still to come.

"It's going to be a tough contest and we know what's coming next week," Willemse said.

"For now, we just need to regroup, look at the footage on Monday, recover well and take Italy on.

"It's going to be a tough contest as they showed that they can win. In world rugby, any team can beat any team, so we need to prepare as best as we can."