Udine, Italy - World champions South Africa ended their three-match losing run with a 32-10 victory against error-strewn Italy here on Saturday.
The Springboks came into the match on the back of an unusual losing run but quickly found their form to deal Italy their 13th straight defeat.
The first half was a mini disaster for the Italians, although they did well to turn around at the break only 12-7 behind.
When playing the world champions as heavy underdogs the last thing you want to do is pay for some early indiscipline but on his first start for his country, flanker Simone Favaro charged upfield and hit Fourie du Preez with a stupid late tackle that earned him a yellow card and resulted in a simple 30-yard penalty in front of the posts.
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Morne Steyn hit the post with his kick but Italy's reprieve was short as on 5 minutes Ryan Kankowski handed off with embarrassing ease a pathetic attempted tackle from Craig Gower and then cut inside Fabio Ongaro before shifting the ball inside to Bryan Habana, who wasn't going to be stopped from 15 yards out.
Steyn missed the conversion but just after Favaro was allowed back on, Habana beat Matteo Pratichetti on the outside and slipped the ball inside for Jacques Fourie to score under the posts.
Steyn finally landed a kick and with 14 minutes gone the hosts were already 12-0 down.
Italy did start to improve, though, and should have have scored as Alessandro Zanni broke to within a yard of the line but his support was slow in reaching him and the Springboks half cleared.
However, they gave away a penalty and Gower, who was having a nightmare, missed before later undoing some good Italian work through the phases by sending a drop kick wide.
But the former Australian rugby league international finally came good on 31 minutes as he gave a subtle pass inside to Gonzalo Garcia with Alberto Sgarbi acting as a foil, completely flummoxing the Springbok backline and allowing Garcia to run through and score a try that Gower conveted.
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