Springboks' winless tour continues

[blueandblack]

English Premiership leaders Saracens beat world champions South Africa 24-23 at Wembley on Tuesday to leave their opponents winless after their three tour matches so far.

The Springboks - admittedly a vastly different line-up to the first string side that lost to France on Friday - had looked to be in the box seat as they turned round at half-time 18-6 up having scored two tries.

However, the half-time talk by Saracens director of rugby and former Springbok international Brendan Venter did the trick and they recorded a famous victory in front of 45,000 spectators to make their record this season eight wins from eight matches.

Meanwhile, South Africa's Bryan Habana was cleared of trying to deliberately kick France's Vincent Clerc at an International Rugby Board (IRB) disciplinary hearing on Tuesday.

The decision means the Springbok wing is available to play for the world champions against Italy in Udinese on Saturday.

Habana was cited after television images appeared to show him kicking out at Clerc when his fellow wing was lying on the ground during last Friday's international in Toulouse, a match France won 20-13.

But the IRB's judicial officer for the match, Professor Lorne Crerar of Scotland, said he was unable to determine, upon the balance of probabilities, that the player had deliberately kicked Clerc.

A statement issued by the IRB added a detailed examination of the video clips showed France full-back Damien Traille gripping the lower leg of Habana, pulling Habana's leg towards him and the prostrate Clerc.

[pieter blackie]

awsome I would love to see the game it was almost a Old South Africa vs New South Africa

[KenyaQuin]

45k at the game..excellent stuff.

[beige]

Saracens got a similar crowd for a Premiership game at Wembley earlier this year so it seems to work for them.