Previewing the weekend , Scrum's chief rugby writer and former British Lion John Taylor called on England, Ireland and France to put down a marker by beating all three countries to have won the World Cup on the same day.

Well, France followed on the two gruelling victories in Twickenham and Dublin with an altogether more comfortable win and a record score over an enthusiastic Springboks team which lacked the guile or the skill to push their hosts to the limit.

In the end it was almost the perfect dish to serve before a passionate Marseilles crowd: France had enough room to show off their sublime skills without getting a meaningless walkover, but the purist would have wanted to see the Boks backs with ball in hand at speed - Breyton Paulse and Brent Russell were largely invisible - and also more tries for Les Bleus.

Still the score would have been a lot closer had the video ref taken a different view of two very close calls - denying the Boks a late try but granting the French an even later one.

South Africa would have settled for the half time deficit of 12-3, given that they conceded possession and territory for long periods and also that they had to make do without first choice centre Jean de Villiers, carried off with a nasty-looking knee injury with 7 minutes gone, and fellow debutant Bakkies Botha, yellow-carded for stamping in a ruck.

However they were fortunate that, while the French were quick to spin the ball wide to flyers Vincent Clerc and Cedric Heymans, the momentum was usually lateral, and the one occasion when the French backs looked like breaching the line but for a dropped pass with metres to go, a second look proved that in fact it wasn't the backs at all but flanker Olivier Magne out there on the touchline trying to find his no 8 Imanol Harinordoquy.

Nonetheless France were clinical when it really mattered and the boot of Gelez put on the points. De Villiers had added insult to injury by giving away a harshly-judged penalty while getting crocked, and that was 3-0. Five minutes later Andre Pretorius missed a much easier one, and on 18 AJ Venter strayed offside and Gelez made it 6-0.

For variety, the next score was an exquisite drop goal from Thomas Castaignède, the Saracens stand off turning up in his first test match in two years since injuring his knee in a warn up in Paris. He was in for the injured Tony Martin and while not providing the forward drive at outside centre which the French sorely needed, few no 13s would have had the speed of thought or foot to score as he did.

The 14 Boks survived till half time: Botha's yellow offence was only penalised by another penalty from Gelez, and with five minutes to half time Pretorius got his radar sorted to punish a high tackle by Galthie.

France broke the deadlock early in the second half with the sort of try only they can score. Harinordoquy turned a Springboks' lost ball into French attack with a lovely slip pass. Clerc fed François Galthié on the wing and when the scrum-half realised he had nowhere to go, he produced an inspired cross-field kick to find Heymans in midfield with the cover mostly missing. The obvious thing to do was ship it on to Damien Traille who had a clear run to the line, but this was France, so Heymans tempted the tackler and then, with a spin and a twist, avoided contact, and was away and gone. Gelez made the conversion look easy.

Minutes later the Boks were penalised for offside and Gelez stretched the lead to 19 points.

For a time it seemed the French only had to concentrate to run in more points, but a messy passage of play deep in the Boks 22 where possession changed hands twice through knock-ons and advantage led to a kick ahead and gather and sprint by Paulse, and then a perfect pass out of the tackle to send Joe van Niekerk away for a walk-in try. Pretorius converted for 22-10.

France were straight back in Boks' territory and Gelez slotted his sixth kick to reopen the lead to 15 points, but again from nowhere the Boks almost scored again when de Kock charged down a kick and looked to have got the touchdown before the ball ran dead; however video ref Gareth Simmons could not be 100% sure so the decision was no try.

The Boks now began to find some continuity but the crowd chose to be entertained rather than worried by this as they could see the clock rapidly running down.

Finally it was France's turn to wait for the video ref. Traille got a hand onto a kick through, just before it ran dead. With great theatre the ref Alain Rolland had to run down the tunnel to check with Simmons, but this time the decision was for a try.

France:
Tries: Heymans (48 mins), Traille (80+)
Pens: Gelez 5
Cons: Gelez
Drop Goals: Castaignède

South Africa
Tries: van Niekerk
Pens: Pretorius
Cons: Pretorius

France:
15 Nicolas Brusque, 14 Vincent Clerc, 13 Damien Traille, 12 Thomas Castaignède, 11 Cedric Heymans, 10 François Gelez, 9 Fabien Galthié (captain), 8 Imanol Harinordoquy, 7 Olivier Magne, 6 Serge Betsen, 5 Fabien Pelous, 4 Olivier Brouzet, 3 Pieter de Villiers, 2 Raphaël Ibañez, 1 Jean-Jacques Crença.

Replacements: Sylvain Marconnet, Jean-Baptiste Rué, Thibault Privat, Sebastién Chabal, Dmitri Yachvili, Gérald Merceron, Xavier Garbajosa.

South Africa:
Werner Greeff, Breyton Paulse, Jean de Villiers, Robbie Fleck, Brent Russell, Andre Pretorius, Neil de Kock, Joe van Niekerk, AJ Venter, Corne Krige (capt), Jannes Labuschagne, Bakkies Botha, Willie Meyer, James Dalton and Lawrence Sephaka.

Substitutes: Adrian Jacobs, Butch James, Bolla Conradie, Pedrie Wannenburg, Marco Wentzel, Wessel Roux and Lukas van Biljon.

Referee: A. Rolland (Ire)
Venue: Marseilles