Former South African sevens rugby star Rosko Specman put up a brilliant show to guide Classic Springboks into the final of the World Rugby Classic as they triumphed 47-16 over Classic France in the semi-final at the National Sports Centre last night.

Specman, who is playing in the Classic for the first time after winning bronze for his country at the Paris Olympics in July, scored two tries and also played a part in three of South Africa’s seven tries.

The Springboks, winners of the Classic on six previous occasions, will now go in search of their seventh title when they clash with Canada in the final on Friday.

Specman, 35, conceded his side did not make a great start against France and will need to tighten that up in the last match of the tournament.

“It wasn’t an easy match against the French,” Specman told The Royal Gazette.

“They always come out guns blazing in the first ten minutes and they have that belief that they can beat any team on any day.

“We didn’t have a good start in the first ten minutes. We then changed tactics to open up the space wide because that’s where we feel we are dangerous.

“We didn’t want to give our forwards too much load on the legs. We needed two phases and then the boys at the back did all the work.

“Going forward, we can’t start like this against Canada because we know they have a good kicker. They also have dangerous runners in the middle, so we have to make sure that we keep our ball and make sure that we finish them in the first half.”

France coach Stephane Glas lamented losing six players to injury, which diminished their numbers for the semi-final encounter.

“Congratulations to South Africa and they deserved to win,” the former French centre said.

“We played really well but South Africa were better than us. We wanted to play in the final on Friday, but the best team won.

“We've got six players injured, so we only had 16 players for the match. We’ll try our best to come back with a strong team next time.”

Specman benefited from some great work by Andries Coetzee, who released the speedster to score under the posts before Ruan Pienaar added the extra two points with a successful conversion.

France got their first points from a Gauthier Escalais penalty after the South Africans were penalised for a high tackle.

Some clever thinking from Zane Kirchner then saw the former Springboks full back go for a grubber kick. Specman gathered the ball and offloaded it to the onrushing Joe Pietersen to finish things off, with Pienaar’s conversion making it 14-3.

It was the French who had the last say in the first half as Escalais booted a penalty just before the break.

France started the second half the way they ended the first as Escalais found success from the kicking tee after the South Africans were pinned for being offside.

Specman then combined with Pienaar to send Quintin Geldenhuys under the posts and Pienaar maintained his 100 per cent kicking record to make it 21-9.

Kirchner delivered the fourth try after which Pienaar sent his conversion attempt wide, but Gerhard Munro then rossed the whitewash for South Africa’s fifth try, with Pienaar’s boot delivering the extras.

Escalais scored France’s only try when he forced his way through in the left corner and he nailed the conversion to give the French some hopes of a comeback.

However, Specman was not done for the night, grabbing his second try which was converted by Kirchner. Jonathan Francke then did all the hard work to provide Morgan Newman with a lovely offload for the final try of the match, with Kirchner again excellent with the kick as the Classic Springboks picked up another convincing win.

In the preceding match, Classic Lions defeated Italian Classic to set up a Plate final showdown with Ireland.