WATCH | Boks charm 8 000-strong Toulon crowd during open training session at the Mayol

In Toulon

The Springboks drew in a crowd of just over 8 000 for their first open training session at the Stade Mayol in Toulon on Thursday before they leave for Bordeaux later in the day to prepare for Sunday's Pool B World Cup game against Romania.

The Boks were in high spirits on entering the field, despite the bad news of losing star hooker Malcolm Marx, who was ruled out of the remainder of the World Cup on Thursday with a knee injury he sustained during training on Wednesday.

Since arriving in Toulon on 3 September from their preparation camp in Corsica, the Boks have split their training sessions between the 103-year-old stadium, named after a famous local concert hall singer, Felix Mayol, who put money into the construction of the stadium, and the state-of-the-art Toulon Rugby Club campus.

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However, none of those sessions were opened to the public, which would be familiar with the likes of Boks Cheslin Kolbe and Eben Etzebeth, who have both donned the Red and Black of Toulon.

The port city, which also harbours France's main naval base and is rugby-mad in every respect, has embraced the presence of the Boks in their midst and were duly rewarded with an opportunity to watch them at training at the 17 500-capacity Mayol, comfortably too small to host a World Cup game, but just the place to treat the locals to a Springbok sample.

Almost 8000 people at Toulon’s Stade Mayol for @Springboks open training session before departing for Bordeaux. 15 minutes into training that main stand was almost full @SuperSportTV @SSRugby pic.twitter.com/mOUOGVHIrJ

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