Blitzboks player Ronald Brown. Picture: David Van Der Sandt/Gallo Images
The Blitzboks have made the worst possible start to the Toulouse Sevens tournament.
Siviwe Soyizwapi and his team crashed 31-7 in their opening match of the penultimate World Rugby Sevens Series event, before the final tournament in London next week.
The hosts ran in five tries to the one by the South Africans at the Stade Ernest-Wallon in Toulouse on Friday aftwernoon.
According to a story on the SA Rugby website, the Blitzboks never respected the ball when they were in possession, were fooled into two-on-one tackles which handed France easy offloads and generally fell off tackles they were expected to make.
To add to their misery, discipline was a problem too and Ronald Brown was yellow carded in the first half, handing France an easy score because of that.
The match started well for South Africa who had the best of the opening spell and attacked with purpose. A loose pass saw Mfundo Ndhlovu spill the ball and from the following restart, the centre missed a straight up tackle to hand France their first try in three minutes in.
Brown was then binned and with the resulting try, the hosts led by 12-0 at the break.
The French had the game under control and gave their home crowd something to cheer about in the second half. They scored in the opening minute after the break when a gang tackle by South Africa was nullified by a beautiful offload.
Brown then missed a tackle to hand France a 24-0 lead before James Murphy clawed one back after good defensive pressure near the French line.
France scored another try near the end of the match thanks to another delightful offload to leave the South Africans with much to ponder with Fiji looming at 9.03pm on Friday.