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“I felt bad for the player”

Portugal coach Simon Mannix spoke proudly of his side’s performance against the Springboks and handed Andre Esterhuizen a red card in the second minute of the match.

Os Lobos were soundly beaten by the Springboks 64-21 in Bloemfontein on Saturday in the first meeting between the nations, but Mannix was undaunted by the final result.

Red card for Esterhuizen

South Africa were reduced to 14 men just two minutes into the match after centre Esterhuizen crashed into Jose Lima and the Portuguese midfielder was forced off the field.

Esterhuizen was initially shown a yellow card for his challenge, but the decision was upgraded to a red following a review of the TMO bunker while Lima was taken to hospital.

Commenting on the incident at the post-match press conference, Mannix described it as an “unfortunate incident” and sympathised with Esterhuizen.

“South Africa are a very strong team in every aspect and my thoughts are with Jose Lima who is still in hospital tonight. These are unfortunate things in rugby,” said the head coach.

“It was a head-to-head clash and I really felt sorry for the player who received the red card; it was an unfortunate incident for everyone involved.

“But our thoughts are firmly with Jose, but we keep our fingers crossed that everything is okay and we are praying for him.”

Following Esterhuizen’s dismissal, Portugal took the lead with Lima substitute José Paiva do Santos rounding off a stellar long-range try from inside his own area after capitalising on a lost ball.

The substitute would score a second try later in the match and when asked if the early red card had meant an exclusion from the game, Mannix would not accept that.

“As far as the impact on the game, there’s no point in me getting into the ‘ifs’ and ‘whats’; there’s a lot of things that could have happened that didn’t happen and other things,” he said.

“I stand by my position that I am very proud of the team’s performance in a fairly hostile environment and they did very well.”

“We won’t win the World Cup like this”: Rassie Erasmus reacts to Andre Esterhuizen’s “accident”

Pride in performance

He also praised both the Springboks and his team in what was only his second game in charge of Os Lobos after replacing Patrice Lagisquet.

“We’re not naive, we know that was a B team that was there, but a B team that played some really good rugby at times and has some great athletes,” he said when commenting on the Springboks.

“They beat us up in our runs, in several areas of the game, in fact. Even so, we showed a lot of courage.

“We have players who have been playing in the fourth and fifth division in France and to see them exposed to an incredible crowd and atmosphere, I couldn’t be more proud.”

He added: This was practically a pre-season tour for us, physically we are not in the best shape to play this game, but we will learn a lot of lessons and improve.

“I was very proud of the way we tried to play rugby and I think in the first 10 minutes we showed our ability to carry the ball wide and move it, and when we did that – you saw Portugal play at the World Cup – it was a real pleasure.”

READ MORE: Springboks vs Portugal: Labelling all seven debutants as ‘great’ forwards steals the show