Leicester 22 - 17 South Africa: Leicester stun world champion Springboks

Published on Saturday 7 November 2009 00:09

LEICESTER produced one of the great upsets in tour history by humbling world champions South Africa with a fearless display in front of a record crowd at Welford Road.

A Tigers XV shorn of five England players and eight others through injury and unavailability was expected to provide cannon fodder for a rampant Springbok squad, who arrived for the start of their European tour on a golden run which included a 2-1 defeat of the British and Irish Lions and a commanding Tri-Nations series.

But Leicester opened up a surprise 16-8 lead in the first half on the back of sure kicking from their 20-year-old scrum-half Ben Youngs, and a superb try from Argentina winger Lucas Amorosino. And the Guinness Premiership champions were able to weather a belated Boks response late in the game.

Leicester marked the first-ever visit of a South Africa side to their 117-year-old stadium with an official unveiling of a new 14million 10,000-seater Caterpillar Stand before kick-off, which swells capacity to 24,000.

Scorers: Leicester: Try: Amorosino; Con: Youngs; Pen: Youngs 5. South Africa: Try: Nokwe; Pen: Pienaar 4.

Leicester: S Hamilton; L Amorosino (L Tuqiri 55), A Forsyth, M Tuilagi, J Murphy; A Mauger (capt), B Youngs; B Stankovich, M Davies (G Chuter 55), M Castrogiovanni (D Cole 66), C Green, D Hemingway, G Parling, B Pienaar (T Armes 61), B Deacon (C Hammond 13).

South Africa: E Rose (R Viljoen 68); O Ndungane, J de Jongh, W Olivier (M Bosman 65), J Nokwe; R Pienaar, H Adams; G Steenkamp (H van der Merwe 40), C Ralepelle (capt, B Maku 20), J du Plessis, D Rossouw (A Hargreaves 60), A Bekker, D Potgieter, D Raubenheimer (J Deysel 49), A Johnson.

Referee: S Dickinson (Australia). Attendance: 24,000