France's star backs flop as they lose to South Africa in Rugby World Cup quarterfinals

PARIS (AP) — France’s star backs were supposed to lead the tournament favorite past defending champion South Africa and into the Rugby World Cup semifinals.

They flopped as South Africa won 29-28 in a cliffhanger on Sunday.

Right winger Damian Penaud was on a career-best seven-match try-scoring run and topped the tournament with six tries.

Fullback Thomas Ramos was the leading point-scorer and had hardly missed a kick.

Talismanic captain Antoine Dupont came back from a tournament-threatening injury to line up alongside the silky Matthieu Jalibert.

All enjoyed good starts but as the tension ramped up in a packed Stade de France, they became increasingly smothered by the Springboks’ scrambling defense.

“When you look at the match, I think there was plenty of room for improvement,” Jalibert said. “South Africa should also be congratulated for resisting our attacks and scoring when they had the chance. We made a lot of little mistakes.”

Penaud was far from the lethal finisher who terrified defenders, and Ramos was careless enough not to see Cheslin Kolbe coming at him and charge down a conversion attempt, a rare event. Those wasted two points came with the score at 12-12 and proved vital in a one-point contest.

Dupont looked rusty and made errors, too. He had never lost his 14 previous tests at home as captain. Jalibert went off near the end, having made little impression.

“There were a few set-pieces that allowed them to stay in our half. It’s always annoying to play in your own half,” Ramos said. “They were very strong in the rucks and tackles. Our halfbacks couldn’t get clean ball. Tonight was tough.”

Springboks captain Siya Kolisi said they deliberately worked to restrict as much ball as possible from the France backs.

“We scrambled a lot and we scrambled hard. We talk about chasing lost causes as a group,” Kolisi said. “We did our research and we saw how good their backs were. If we hadn’t have done that we would have gone home today.”

It was France’s forwards who did all the damage in attack, with prop Cyril Baille scoring two tries and hooker Peato Mauvaka getting the other. When they went off during the second half, France’s hopes seemed to leave with them.

Baille is among the quickest props in world rugby, and Mauvaka makes runs like a standout center. Both dived over into the right corner for first-half tries.

Mauvaka’s try took him to nine in 29 tests, a prolific return for a hooker.

For France’s third try, they even combined.

Another crashing run from Mauvaka off a lineout was held up near the line. Baille was there to pick the ball up from the back of the ruck to burrow over for his second try and fifth for Les Tricolores.

Baille was not certain to even play in the tournament after sustaining a calf injury in a warmup match against Scotland on Aug. 12. He returned for the third pool game against Namibia, scoring in a 96-0 rout.

Mauvaka wasn’t first choice before the tournament but seized his opportunity after Julien Marchand injured his left hamstring injury in the opening game against New Zealand, and contributed well to a 27-13 win. Mauvaka scored tries against Uruguay and Italy.

Reda Wardi replaced Baille on 50 minutes, and Mauvaka was mobbed by his teammates after breaking up a South African attack near the line. The Stade de France crowd roared when Les Tricolores stole a South African throw-in.

Mauvaka was given a standing ovation when he came off in the 64th with the score 25-19. His tackling was very much missed when lock Eben Etzebeth bulldozed over Jalibert three minutes later for a converted try which put the Springboks ahead in the see-saw quarterfinal.

South Africa never looked back.