South Africa are not the defending world champions by accident. After the first 40 minutes Scotland could still glimpse the high road to qualification in Pool B, only to be brought back down to earth with an audible thud. Teams who cannot take all their chances and secure a reliable supply of set-piece ball will be ground down by this Springbok side sooner or later.
If the Boks wobbled at times in the opening 40 minutes it was a very different story after the interval, with two tries inside four minutes from Pieter-Steph du Toit and Kurt-Lee Arendse in the third quarter ultimately keeping the fading Scots at arms length. One long-range Finn Russell penalty was all they could collectively muster against the most formidable defensive side in the tournament.
Gregor Townsend was suitably downcast afterwards, bemoaning his side’s lack of lineout accuracy and an early non-decision that might have reshaped the narrative. Jesse Kriel’s upright tackle on the Scotland number eight Jack Dempsey inside the first minute of the game appeared to meet the potential red card threshold but the incident was not brought to the attention of the match officials.
Townsend was among those who thought it should have been. “I was expecting the TMO to come in to make the referee aware of that,” he said, suggesting more needs to be done to improve the consistency of tackle height outcomes in major high-profile games. “There’s still inconsistencies in seeing these things,” he said. “We’re obviously frustrated with that but we’re more frustrated with our own performance. We never got the accuracy to really trouble them on the scoreboard. Credit to South Africa’s defence but we have to be much better there.”
Costliest of all, perhaps, were the lineout glitches that repeatedly cost Scotland in their opponents’ 22 and the first-half moment when Darcy Graham, with two men outside him, clung on to the ball with the try line beckoning. While they trotted in at half-time just 6-3 down having applied some genuine pressure to the South African scrum, it was all downhill for the Scots thereafter.
If South Africa were not as impressive in attack as they were against New Zealand at Twickenham last month, they remain as hard to break down as ever. At first glance their peppermint-and-white kit diluted some of their aura but their steely determination to regain their title is visibly unchanged.
Here was further evidence that stopping them from reaching the final will require something special. On a road outside the ground before kick-off, in front of the traffic, was a unicyclist juggling knives with a ball balanced on his head. It was a decent metaphor for the multi-dimensional task facing the Scots, who also have to battle their way past Ireland, the world’s top-ranked side.
Russell tried his hardest in the first half to stretch the Boks from side to side like a giant piece of elastic but the finishing touches proved elusive. The early departure of Eben Etzebeth, with a shoulder injury did rob South Africa of one of their enforcers and when Sione Tuipulotu ran straight over Manie Libbok, it seemed the Scots might be gathering some momentum.
Even better was to follow when the Scottish scrum cranked up the pressure on their opposite numbers and the formidable Frans Malherbe was forced to the floor. Russell, previously penalised for a no-arms tackle on Arendse, nailed the penalty from 45m and Scotland were daring to dream.
South Africa needed some kind of second-half response and it duly materialised. First Du Toit was driven over beneath of pile of bodies and, within four minutes, a glorious no-look cross-kick from Libbok was taken in his stride by a sprinting Arendse who burned off the cover to score his side’s second. From that moment there was never much chance of a Scottish miracle. “I was proud of how we fronted up physically but our accuracy wasn’t quite there,” admitted their captain Jamie Ritchie.
“These are things that are in our control and we need to fix. But as a group we’ve still got a lot to play for in this group. The good stuff we’ve done in the last few months hasn’t gone away.”
The Boks will clearly be monitoring Etzebeth’s fitness closely but, despite their slightly sluggish start, their head coach Jacques Nienaber sounded relatively content with the mega pool showdown against Ireland just over the horizon on Saturday week. He also insisted the South African coaches’ use of traffic light-style colour-coded signals during the game were merely designed to relay injury updates rather than tactical information from the stands. “Sometimes it’s difficult for us to talk to our support staff,” he said, referencing the high noise levels in the stadium. “I am sure a lot of teams will have systems so they can communicate. I don’t think you need any permission from World Rugby.” The Boks are currently sending out a stream of crystal clear messages, on and off the field.
