THE Blitzboks’ campaign for Olympic gold ended disappointingly on Saturday as they lost 19-5 to France in the semi-finals in Paris during a gruelling duel to reach the gold medal match.
It’s the second time at an Olympic event - after Rio 2016 - that Team South Africa’s Blitboks are knocked out just before reaching the climax of the global event.
They will now play out for the bronze medal, which they won in 2016, at 7pm in the Stade de France against Australia who lost to Fiji in the other semi-final.
Two crucial defensive errors curtailed the South Africans on Saturday after they took the lead through a Tristan Leyds-try just to let the dream slip away in the second half of the contest.
The contest was fairly even throughout the game and the French only really got the upper hand in the late stages of the second half when tired legs started creeping in. Both sides went at each other in the first half, but thanks to some good defensive efforts on either side of the halfway line, it was difficult to score points.
South Africa threatened the French line at times, while the hosts did the same, but right until the last couple of minutes in the first half, things were on a knife’s edge.
But in the second half, the home crowd was fully behind their team and they grew in the game to overpower the Blitzboks’ defence to score three unanswered tries to clinch the clash to go to the final.
Rayan Rebbadj scored a brace of tries and kicked both conversions after some good build-up-play by the French as they slipped through the midfield of the SA defence. The second try of Rebbadj effectively put the nail in the coffin for the South Africans, before a late Jordan Sepho score put the result beyond any doubt.