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MARSEILLE - South Africa helped restore some of the battered pride of the southern hemisphere's traditional powerhouses with a hard-fought 37-20 win over Fiji this morning in the World Cup quarter-finals.
The Springboks briefly looked to be in danger of joining their Tri-Nations partners New Zealand and Australia as shock early casualties when Fiji launched a second-half comeback but held their composure to book their place in the semi-finals against Argentina or Scotland.
"It was a tough quarter-final, we're pretty happy to get through that. There was a time there when I thought 'let's not make this a weekend of upsets'," South Africa captain John Smit told ITV television.
"They certainly came at us and we certainly didn't defend as well as we should have."
Fiji, who made the quarter-finals for the first time in 20 years with a stunning win over Wales in the pool stage, threatened to produce another boilover when they scored two tries in three minutes to draw level midway through the second half only to run out of steam in the last 17 minutes.
South Africa regained the lead through a penalty from fullback Percy Montgomery then sealed their victory with late tries from bustling openside flanker Juan Smith and first five-eighths Butch James.
The Springboks had looked in control of the match when they led 20-6 after an hour and the Fijians were reduced to 14 men after the sin-binning of inside centre Seru Rabeni, before the game suddenly burst into life.
Vilimoni Delasau scored in the left corner after kicking over the defence line and winning the race to the ball. Then his fellow winger Sireli Bobo followed up a break from halfback Mosese Rauluni to score a second try three minutes later.
The Pacific islanders almost had a third try when Ifereimi Rawaqa crashed over in the left corner only to put his foot into touch after a smothering tackle from JP Pietersen.
Pietersen had scored a try himself earlier in the second half to stretch South Africa's lead to 14 points after they gone to the break 13-3 ahead following tries from outside centre Jaque Fourie and captain Smit.
Inside centre Francois Steyn landed a booming penalty goal from just inside his own half to open the scoring after just eight minutes while Seremaia Bai, who moved from centre to first five-eighths to replace the injured Nicky Little, kicked two penalties and two conversions.
Fiji's Rauluni said he was proud of his side even though they had not been able to cause an upset.
"All I asked from the boys was to give it their all and they did," he told ITV. "There were two upset results yesterday and we were hoping to upset today too but unfortunately we couldn't do it."
South Africa are chasing their second World Cup after winning the tournament at home in 1995 and are the highest ranked team left this year after New Zealand were beaten by France and Australia lost to England on yesterday.
- REUTERS
