South Africa Legends ran in 11 tries in a 74-7 triumph against Classic Lions to book their spot in the World Rugby Classic semi-finals at the National Sports Centre yesterday.

The Springboks will meet France on Wednesday with a spot in Friday’s final at stake. Earlier in the day, the French defeated Italy 28-10 as last year’s beaten finalists secured their spot in the last four.

Willem Alberts, the South African vice-captain was delighted to pick up a big win in perfect weather conditions.

“It was a very good game and we were lucky to score a lot of points,’’ Alberts told The Royal Gazette.

“It was a bit of a sloppy game, I think you could see the travel fatigue and that we last played rugby a long time ago. We have a new team but, luckily, the eagerness, camaraderie and team spirit was there for us to keep on playing.

“It’s my first time playing in the World Rugby Classic. All the boys that were here last year said there were low scoring games, but apparently the weather wasn’t as great.

“We played in beautiful weather today, so I think that helped us a bit as well. It was still tough, it was a physical game, especially in the close quarters.

“Once we got to give the ball a bit of air and get into the open spaces, with a lot of support from the guys, we scored some very good tries.

“The French are a very good side, so we have to be at our best on Wednesday when we play them. We've got a couple of days to recover and then we’ll take the next game as it comes.”

Alan Martin, the Lions coach, whose team is facing Italy in the Plate semi-final on Wednesday, felt that South Africa profited from mistakes made by his players.

“The best team won, they were big, strong and powerful,” Martin said.

“Once we started chasing the game, it meant that we put pressure on ourselves. We tried to force the odd offload or force a play that was never on, and then they were picking up the mistakes.

“I did not know what to expect. It’s my first time here and we had one training session together with boys who had never met each other before.

“We picked up a few injuries against South Africa, so we’ll just see what kind of team we can field against Italy.

Ruan Pienaar opened the scoring for the men in green and gold when he charged down a kick to score under the posts. The 2007 World Cup winner added the extras with a successful conversion.

Andries Coetzee was at the end a brilliant move by the South Africans to score the second try, whose conversion attempt from Pienaar was unsuccessful.

The lead was 17-0 when Zane Kirchner’s cross-field kick was gathered by wing JJ Engelbrecht who scored over on the corner, with Pienaar again not able to deliver the extras.

Steven Shingler scored and converted the only try for the Lions just before the break to give them hope of a comeback.

South Africa did all the scoring in the second half. It started with a lovely offload by centre Jape Nel for lock Quintin Geldenhuys to go over under the posts, with Rosko Specman booting in the conversion.

Coetzee rode through some tackles to plant the ball over the line and the scorer went to send his conversion attempt wide.

Specman, a member of the South African sevens team at the Paris Olympics, showed that there was still some gas left in his 35-year-old legs with a burst of speed to score the sixth try for his team. Pienaar added the two points kicking through the posts.

Alberts was at the end of a brilliant move involving Specman and Pienaar for the seventh try. The forward had no problems with getting the conversion in between the posts.

Flanker Abonga Nkwelo intercepted the ball to make it eight tries, but he could not add the extra two points. A huge overlap resulted in Gerhard Munro crossing the whitewash for the ninth try, with the scorer sharing kicking duties.

It was one-way traffic as Johnathan Francke added the tenth and Pienaar did the honours. Captain Sam Gerber put the icing on the cake with a try that was converted by Munro.

Saturday saw Canadian Classic overcome Classic Ireland 28-10 to set up a date with Classic Pumas in the semi-finals tomorrow. The Argentinians, who are the defending champions, defeated the United States Classic Eagles with a 27-5.

Ireland and the US will now fight it out for a spot in the Plate final when they contest the semi-final tomorrow.