South Africa thump Italy to stay perfect in Nations Championship

TURIN, Italy, Nov 7 : South Africa strolled past an injury-hit Italy with a 66-7 win in Saturday's Nations Championship meeting in Turin, where flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu scored the first of nine Springbok tries and added another 21 points from a perfect kicking display.

South Africa ran in six tries in an utterly dominant opening half. Hooker Malcolm Marx went over twice, adding to scores by Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Morne van den Berg, captain Siya Kolisi and Damian Willemse, with Feinberg-Mngomezulu kicking all six conversions having opened the scoring with a penalty.

Wilco Louw added another try after the break before Italy finally got off the mark with Federico Ruzza's try converted by Tommaso Allan. Paul de Villiers and Ethan Hooker added to the Springboks' try count.

South Africa had claimed maximum points from their three July fixtures to top the Southern Hemisphere group ahead of New Zealand on points difference and they added to that total against Italy ahead of the All Blacks facing Scotland at Murrayfield later on Saturday.

Italy, who lost all three July matches, were without a string of key players, including captain Michele Lamaro and centre pairing Tommaso Menoncello and Juan Ignacio Brex, and had no answer to Rassie Erasmus' almost full-strength side.

"They were missing a lot of players and we know very well that things will be different at next year’s World Cup," Erasmus said.

"They made the most of their opportunities and caused us problems in the scrum."

It was one-way traffic from the off. Italy conceded an early penalty under their posts. South Africa, surprisingly, opted to take the three points, and Feinberg-Mngomezulu followed up with a ninth-minute try.

The flyhalf split the Italian defence with a