World champions South Africa suffered their third successive defeat on their European tour as Saracens fly-half Derick Hougaard kicked a late winning drop-goal at Wembley on Tuesday.

Saracens were 18-6 down at the break but they recovered, thanks to early second-half tries by Ernst Joubert and Brad Barritt.

Hougaard, a former Springbok player, then downed his native country with a goal five minutes from time to complete a 14-point personal haul.

South Africa, who played a second-string side, have now lost to Leicester and France on tour, and will look to turn around their fortunes against Italy this weekend.

They scored tries through Juan de Jongh and Jongi Nokwe (2), with Ruan Pienaar kicking their other points, but their second-half collapse will disappoint head coach Peter De Villiers.

"This victory is massively up there with previous great Saracens performances," gushed Saracens veteran Hugh Vyvyan.

"To beat South Africa at Wembley is just fantastic. Its great for some of us here because we don't often get the chance to play the great players like these."

An extra edge had been added to the game, labelled jokingly by some as South Africa B versus South Africa D, because of some pre-match verbal jousting between the two respective bosses.

De Villiers on Monday accused Saracens director of rugby Brendan Venter of "unethical" behaviour after the latter watched the South Africa squad in a skills session at the north London club's training ground in St Albans.

Venter, a former South Africa international, defended himself by insisting the players he watched were first-team stars who were not going to be involved on Tuesday, and sarcastically thanked De Villiers for the "free advertising" his comments had attracted.

A crowd of 46,281 turned up to watch the match and a scrappy opening saw Hougaard and Pienaar trade penalties in the opening three minutes.

Pienaar then slotted over his second of the night, in the 16th minute, as the tourists, who lost prop CJ van der Linde to injury early on, started to turn the screw.

Moments later, only a superb last-ditch tackle by Noah Cato in the left corner prevented lock Andries Bekker from going over for the first try.

And as the one-way traffic kept on coming, captain Dewald Potgieter lost control of the ball 10 yards out with the line gaping.

A try was clearly imminent and it arrived in the 28th minute, De Jongh leaving Cato and Kameli Ratuvou in his wake as he bustled his way over on the left.

Pienaar missed the conversion, and then a penalty, but added the extras following the 38th-minute try by Nokwe, which was controversially awarded given the winger had run on to a ball that looked to have run free after a knock-on by team-mate Ashley Johnson.

Joubert's 44th-minute try came when he charged down a South Africa clearance before gathering the rebound to score.

The shell-shocked South Africans then conceded a second try 10 minutes later when England Saxons centre Barritt wriggled over from close range.

Hougaard's conversion made it 18-18.

Saracens' fans started to believe but in the 63rd minute, a well-worked move, which involved Wynand Olivier, Earl Rose and De Jongh, was finished off by Nokwe in the corner.

The conversion was missed and it would prove crucial. Hougaard booted a 70th minute penalty before landing the crucial drop with five minutes left.

Meanwhile, South Africa's Bryan Habana was cleared of trying to deliberately kick France's Vincent Clerc at an International Rugby Board (IRB) disciplinary hearing on Tuesday.

The decision means the Springbok wing is available to play for the world champions game against Italy.

Habana was cited after television images appeared to show him kicking out at Clerc when his fellow wing was lying on the ground during last Friday's international in Toulouse, a match France won 20-13.

But the IRB's judicial officer for the match, Professor Lorne Crerar of Scotland, said he was unable to determine, upon the balance of probabilities, that the player had deliberately kicked Clerc.

A statement issued by the IRB added a detailed examination of the video clips showed France full-back Damien Traille gripping the lower leg of Habana, pulling Habana's leg towards him and the prostrate Clerc.

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