Africa-Press – South-Africa. In Marseille
Springbok flyhalf Damian Willemse said they played for Pieter-Steph du Toit despite flanker being sent off early in the 30-26 loss to France at the Stade Velodrome on Saturday.
Du Toit was red-carded by English match official Wayne Barnes in the 11th minute when his head made contact with that of Jonathan Danty’s when he was cleaning out.
Du Toit was shoved into a cleanout of a ruck by Damian de Allende and had no way of avoiding the prostrate Danty.
In the minutes following, the television broadcast cut to Du Toit in the dugout, who was sobbing, fully aware of how costly that moment was and how difficult the rest of the night would be for his teammates.
Whenever the cameras were on Du Toit after that, he buried his head in his hands.
It was a cruel blow and while Du Toit was unlucky in the circumstances, the red card was the correct decision.
“No one wants to let the team and the Springboks down,” flyhalf Damian Willemse said after the game.
“We all feel for him. He is a great player and he’s one of our key players in the game. We said as a team that when he got the red card, we were going to play for him.
“We were going to try and fix things. The boys really did, and I think the boys were really unlucky with giving it away at the end.
“The overall feeling was that we were still in the game. He was done, but we said we were going to play for him.”
The Boks’ currently unsuccessful tour now moves them to Genoa, where they will be facing a buoyant Italy side.
Italy beat Australia 28-27 in Florence on Saturday to record their first back-to-back Autumn international wins in 10 years.
Italy ais now on an unprecedented three-match winning streak, having beaten Wales in their last Six Nations match in March before seeing off Samoa last week.
Willemse said they’ll shift their focus to Italy once they’ve done a review of the France game.
“It’s going to be a tough contest and we know what’s coming next week,” Willemse said.
“For now, we just need to regroup, look at the footage on Monday, recover well and take Italy on.
“It’s going to be a tough contest as they showed that they can win. In world rugby, any team can beat any team, so we need to prepare as best as we can.”
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