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Fourteen-man Boks make massive statement for Siya in Paris

football08 November 2025 22:51
By:Gavin Rich
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There shouldn’t be any arguments any longer over which nation boasts the best rugby team on the planet right now after the Springboks weathered a ferocious French storm and then turned on the taps to win 32-17 at Stade de France in Paris on Saturday night.

It was skipper Siya Kolisi’s landmark 100th game for his country, and in many ways, it epitomised his reign - he was selfless in the sense that he watched the second half from the sidelines as the Boks found a way to counter the red card for Lood de Jager on the stroke of halftime. It was also a reminder that nothing has come easy for this band of winners.

De Jager’s sending off for what referee Angus Gardner deemed a deliberate act of foul play, thus the permanent red card as opposed to a 20-minute card, was not the only obstacle the Boks faced on the night. They also faced a mighty challenge in the form of a French team that was out for revenge for their narrow defeat in the quarterfinal at their own World Cup two years ago.

France scored first through wing Damian Penaud, who scored a brace of tries on the night, after just four minutes, and for most of the first hour, it was the Boks who gave the impression they were just trying to stay in the game.

France were physical, they were direct, they were explosive, and the stats at halftime, even though the hosts only led by one point (14-13), showed them to be the dominant team. They’d dominated possession, territory, broke the most tackles, carried more and made the most metres.

So when De Jager was dispatched, the red seemed a bit harsh. Let’s just say that the debate around that moment will rage on for a while. It may have met the yellow card threshold, but the fact is that the man he was tackling, Thomas Ramos, was effectively on the ground when the incident happened. Certainly, the permanent red just seemed wrong.

However, it would appear churlish to focus too much on that incident, for what it really did was just demonstrate how good the Boks are at overcoming adversity. In the first part of the second half, France did a lot of attacking, had a lot of momentum, but as the minutes passed by and France did not score, so it became more likely that the Boks, like they did in that quarterfinal in October 2023, would switch a gear later on.

And that they did in no uncertain terms, with the French forwards, like they did two years ago, suddenly looking quite puffed and out on their feet and no longer as robust and energetic as they had been earlier. Surviving the third quarter effectively won the Boks the match, with a yellow card to France wing Louis Beille-Barry, who was pinged for a deliberate knockdown in a move that looked like it was bringing the Boks a try, levelling the numbers at 14 men apiece for a crucial 10 minutes.

INTO THE LEAD LATE ON

Ramos had finally got some second half points on the board in the 58th minute to make it 17-13, but after the Boks set up an attacking lineout in the 65th minute, it was Andre Esterhuizen, on as a flanker but also operating in midfield in certain situations, who dotted down a maul try that put the Boks into the lead for the first time in the game.

That was the cue though for the Boks to take complete control, and in no time at all, they’d scored another try, with scrumhalf Grant Williams ghosting through from an attacking lineout to score near the posts. Suddenly, it was the Boks in the clear, eight points up, with less than eight minutes left on the clock.

France weren’t going to come back from there, not when they looked like they had been sapped of all their energy and not with the Bok attacking game suddenly working so well and the visitors enjoying so much momentum.

Flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, although he got the Man of the Match award, had a patchy game by his own standards, with two good nerveless penalties from some way out early on being cancelled out by three misses and also one miss for touch from a penalty.

However, you always sensed he’d have a say, and he did. He was at fullback by then, as Manie Libbok had come on for Damian Willemse, and with five minutes to play, he ran through untouched to score a try he converted to make it a 15-point game.

It didn’t look like that would be the result when France went 14-6 up after 27 minutes through Penaud’s second try as the Bok defence got outflanked. It took a brilliant bit of individual magic, going through a hole as the Boks were on penalty advantage after France collapsed a scrum, and then kicking into space and using his pace to win the race to the ball.

Feinberg-Mngomezulu kicked the conversion to make it a one-point game, but when De Jager was sent off soon after that, it looked like this would be a hurdle too far for the Boks. But it wasn’t, not by a long shot, and the Boks emphatically confirmed their right to be considered the best team in the world as they saw off the European champions in their own backyard.

SCORES:

South Africa 32 - Tries: Cobus Reinach, Andre Esterhuizen, Grant Williams and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu; Conversions: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu 3; Penalties: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu 2.

France 17 - Tries: Damian Penaud 2; Conversions: Thomas Ramos 2; Penalty: Thomas Ramos

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