France hold on to beat South Africa 21-19 at Stade de France as Dupont influences outcome
France held on to beat South Africa 21-19 at the Stade de France on Friday night, with Antoine Dupont central to a match that featured multiple try-scoring bursts, cards and contentious decisions.
The evening began as an elaborate spectacle — fireworks, flamethrowers, floodlights and a multicoloured drone display that formed a three-storey-tall cockerel before reassembling into a red, blue and white heart and then a tricolore, accompanied by 150 dancers with LEDs performing to a choral rendition of Madonna’s Like a Prayer — and the contest that followed produced repeated twists, a string of red and yellow cards, free-wheeling tries and one crucial missed conversion.
Ten minutes into the game Lood de Jager was sin-binned for a high tackle on Maxime Lucu, and France exploited the extra space to open the scoring when Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang, born in Bromley, took a crossfield kick from Dupont inside the South African 22, was checked by Ethan Hooker, then returned to finish in the corner.
Dupont followed with a 50-22 that led to further scoring when Yoram Moefana’s pass struck Kalvin Gourgues in the face, ricocheted over the try line and Théo Attissogbe pounced to touch down; South Africa replied with a rolling-maul try before Dupont set up Louis Bielle-Biarrey with a tumbling grubber to restore France’s 14-point lead.
The coaches traded tactical manoeuvres: Galthié dismissed the notion of mind games as "comic-book stuff" while France named Dupont at No 10 only for him to operate at scrum-half with Lucu outside him; an hour before kick-off Jacques Nienaber’s opposite, Erasmus, reshuffled his side, moving Ox Nché, Malcolm Marx and Wilco Louw onto the bench so that Rodrigue Neti, Régis Montagne and Maxime Lamothe together carried 25 international caps on France’s bench, and Erasmus then sent on his "bomb squad" in the 35th minute.
Discipline and refereeing decisions punctuated the match: Lucu received a yellow card for a high tackle just before half-time; Lucu had only just returned when Grandidier-Nkanang was off too, for slapping down a pass in the French 22; Jasper Wiese was shown a red card for an illegal clearout on Gourgues; one Springbok try by Kurt-Lee Arendse was ruled out for offside and Cobus Reinach scored another try.
In the closing stages France’s replacement pack struggled, Régis Montagne was shown yet another yellow card, South Africa forced a series of scrums on the French try-line and at one point the ball was held up; Lucu missed a penalty during a rare French foray into South African territory and then Malcolm Marx finished a rolling maul that would have levelled the scores, only for Manie Libbok to miss the conversion.
The 21-19 result gave France victory by two points and ended 21 years without a win over the Springboks at their national stadium.