South Africa score 10 tries to beat Portugal in one-off test

BLOEMFONTEIN :Winger Makazole Mapimpi scored a hat-trick of tries as South Africa overwhelmed a gutsy but outgunned Portugal 64-21 despite being down a man for all but two minutes of Saturday’s clash at the Free State Stadium.

The World Cup winners were stung early in their first test meeting against 15th-ranked Portugal when centre Andre Esterhuizen was sent off for an illegal head-high tackle in the second minute.

They were then caught out by a breakaway try for the visitors, brilliantly finished off by winger Jose Paiva dos Santos in the 11th minute.

But the top-ranked Springboks, who made 14 changes from the side that narrowly lost to Ireland in Durban last week, rallied from 0-7 down to dominate in a festival of running rugby in front of a capacity crowd.

South Africa, with seven debutants used in the match, outscored Portugal by 10 tries to three, with Lukhanyo Am, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Ben-Jason Dixon and the debutant quartet of Phepsi Buthelezi, Quan Horn, Andre-Hugo Venter and Jan-Hendrik Wessels also scoring.

Manie Libbok’s kicking woes continued as he put over two of five conversion attempts while his second-half replacement at flyhalf, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu had a 100 per cent return with five conversions.

Dos Santos got a second try for Portugal in the second half, as Feinberg-Mngomezulu missed a tackle, and their gutsy showing was rewarded by a third try, this time from loose forward Jose Madeira. Domingos Cabral put over two conversions and Joris Moura one.

Portugal had earned an invite to play the Springboks after impressing at last year’s World Cup and looked lively in the opening exchanges but even with a numerical advantage were always going to be up against it.

POSITIVE IMPRESSION

Yet they left a positive