Boks fired up for Italy after defeat

LONDON – There were South African celebrations at Wembley on Tuesday night but they were not coming from the touring Springboks after the world champions’ second string were beaten by English club side Saracens.

The Premiership leaders have a wide streak of South African rugby running through them, from director of rugby Brendan Venter to fellow former Springbok Derrick Hougard, whose late drop goal secured a 24-23 victory in front of 46 200 fans.It was the tourists’ third defeat in a row after their shadow side also lost to Leicester before the first team’s reverse in France last Friday.To add to the party atmosphere, fan Stuart Tinner won 250 000 pounds (US$420 800) by hitting the crossbar with a drop-kick in his socks and without even taking his coat off.”We will remember this night for a long time to come,” said Venter.’This was a brilliant night for the club, with the guy hitting the crossbar, with a crowd of over 46 000 and us winning in the end it doesn’t get much better for the club than this.’I know how courageous the guys had to be to fight back from 18-3 down. It was just a great performance from the team.’South Africa, the Tri-nations champions, play Italy this weekend before completing their tour against Ireland.”I certainly believe we can redeem ourselves in the next two test matches. We are taking things game by game, and the game in Italy is going to be huge,’ said Springboks assistant coach Dick Muir.He also had words of consolation for the players on duty at Wembley.”They have not played or trained together enough but they are really good players,” he said.”Individually they didn’t play badly but how do you mould a team without any training sessions? They are basically like a Barbarians team, so I do feel for them.””I still think the experiment hasn’t failed – they have been blooded and are being exposed to players like Victor Matfield, John Smit and Fourie du Preez in training every day.”To add to the tourists worries, Prop CJ van der Linde pulled a hamstring after 10 minutes’ action on Tuesday to leave the Springboks thin on front row resources. – Nampa-Reuters