Stuttering Blitzboks start in Toulouse

The Blitzboks never respected the ball when they were in possession, were fooled into two on one tackles which handed France easy offloads and generally fell off tackles they were expected to make.

To add to their misery, discipline was a problem too and Ronald Brown was yellow carded in the first half, handing France an easy score because of that.

The match started well for South Africa who had the best of the opening spell and attacked with purpose. A loose pass saw Mfundo Ndhlovu spill the ball and from the following restart, the centre missed a straight-up tackle to hand France their first run in three minutes in.

Brown was then binned and with the resulting French score the Blitzboks trailed 12-0 at the break.

The French had the bit between the teeth and gave their home crowd something to cheer in the second half. They scored in the opening minute of the second half when a gang tackle by South Africa was nullified by a beautiful offload.

Brown then missed a tackle to hand the French a 24-0 lead before James Murphy clawed one back after good defensive pressure near the French line.

France then scored another near the end of the match thanks to another delightful offload to leave the South Africans with much to ponder with Fiji looming at 21h03 tonight.

Scorers:

South Africa 7 (0) - Try: James Murphy. Conversion: Ricardo Duarttee

France 31 (12) - Tries: Theo Forner, Jordan Sepho (2), William Iraguha (2). Conversions: Paulin Riva, Stephen Parez, Edo Martin, Thibaud Mazzoleni