France delivered a late flurry of tries to outplay a gritty SA Under-18 ‘A’ side by 40-14 in their last match of the U18 International Series staged at the Paarl Gimnasium on Saturday afternoon.
The French led 18-14 at the break before they raced away late in the second half for their second victory of the series, following a convincing win over England in the previous round.
In cold and overcast but dry conditions in Paarl, the two teams delivered a lively opening spell of rugby with the French enjoying most of the possession and territory. They forced the young South Africans into several mistakes on the defence, which gave the visitors the opportunity to maintain the scoreboard pressure.
They scored two tries, a conversion and a penalty goal in the opening half, while the hosts countered with a converted try and a penalty try.
The SA U18 ‘A’ side put up a gritty fight in the second half, and they managed to keep the French at bay, but in the final quarter, the visitors scored three tries to secure a well-deserved win.
France took the early lead when they worked the ball to left wing Lourenzo Laouna, who dotted down in the corner. With the conversion that hit the upright, the French led 5-0 after making most of the early play inside the SA half.
Halfway through the first half, Thomas Muller (hooker) scored the South Africans’ first try when he went over from a lineout maul, and with skipper Jeandre Uithaler adding the extras from a difficult angle, the South Africans took a 7-5 lead.
Malobe Mbaye (outside centre) scored France’s second try, which was converted by scrumhalf Timeo Gillouin-Lemaire. The scrumhalf then slotted a straightforward penalty goal to hand the French a 15-7 lead with 10 minutes left in the first half.
However, that lead was cut to a single point (15-14) when the referee awarded a penalty try in favour of the home side for illegal play by France during a South African driving maul, which also resulted in a yellow card for tighthead prop Nohlan Watat.
But a bit of ill-discipline on the SA side saw them penalised for a dangerous tackle and Gillouin-Lemaire stepped up again to ease the ball through the uprights as France now move four points clear at 18-14, which was also the halftime score.
The second half saw a huge arm wrestle between the teams, with handling errors and stout defence on both sides thwarting several promising opportunities.
French fullback Andoni Echegaray broke the second-half deadlock when he went over in the right-hand corner for their third try, which Louis Favrau (inside centre) converted to increase their lead to 25-14 with less than 10 minutes remaining.
A penalty goal by Favrau, a converted try by Gaetan Ngassa Manac’h and then another five-pointer by Yanis Brosset just before the final hooter took the game beyond the reach of the South Africans to secure France a convincing 40-14 victory.