Saracens’ South African director of rugby Brendan Venter admitted the club’s ambitious decision to play South Africa at Wembley paid handsome dividends after seeing his side topple the world champions 24-23 on Tuesday.
The Springboks blew an 18-6 half-time lead at England’s home of soccer as they suffered a third successive defeat on their European tour.
Derick Hougaard was the hero for Sarries, the former South Africa fly-half landing a 75th-minute drop-goal to take his personal haul to 14 points.
On an amazing night for Saracens, one of their fans, Stuart Timmer, scooped a cheque for £250,000 (US$420,000) after landing a 35m kick against the crossbar during the half-time entertainment — he then invited all the Saracens cheerleaders out on a date.
Venter said: “This was a brilliant evening for the club.
“We have shown a lot of ambition, and with the guy hitting the crossbar, us winning in the end and with 46,000 people watching — it doesn’t get much better than this.”
South Africa, who fielded a second-string side, have lost to Leicester, France and now Saracens on tour.
They will look to turn around their fortunes against Italy on Saturday and then Six Nations Grand Slam champions Ireland the following weekend.
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