Scotland vs The Springboks

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Scotland vs South Africa

Date: Sunday 10th November 2024
Venue: Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh
Kick-off: 4:10pm
Referee: Christophe Ridley (England)
TV Coverage: Live on TNT Sports

Teams

Scotland

South Africa

Fairly routine win in the end for South Africa. Typical Scotland lots of endeavour but complete failure to capitalise on opportunities then bullied into submission. Had we converted some opportunities in the second half when we had pressure on we might’ve been able to push them closer, but for all the energy and momentary excitement, back to the familiar story and we knock on under pressure.

Not high quality from SA, lots of errors, but they did enough. They really monstered Scotland in the last 15 and added some gloss to the scoreboard.

Scotland did have SA rattled early in the second half, and it was really poor from Scotland to kick three at 12-19 down, with SA down to 14. Scotland needed tries to try and win this one.

Think this game will have been SA getting some rust out of the system, and they should be better next week.

I don't think that a bad performance and if we had kept them out at the end the scoreline would not have flattered us. real problem was scrums in the second half. You cannot compete if every scrum is a pen for them.

We had a good go and made them work for it. Far better than the abject performance in the WC

The scrum was painful to watch. How are SA so bloody good at it? Is it just pure power? Or is their technique just spot on?

Scotland had the upper hand for a while after they weathered the bomb squad but it was disappointing to see players losing their composure when they had momentum on their side. Jones had a brilliant game but two awful passes to VDM let the Boks off the hook.

6/10 for me

I feared an absolute crushing 50 pt defeat. To be competitive and to be ruing missed chances is an OK result. Can we steal a couple of their props tho? That was a gubbing in the second half in the scrums

Yeah have to say the reffing really had an effect on our momentum that game but SA as always just had more gamesmanship in their back pocket.

I think this is one of the reasons we need to look beyond toonie before the next WC. Against the big boys he just can't seem to think of any tactics other than run at them. We had some good spells but kept going wide when they clearly had us covered, very few dinks over. Not russels best tbf and Jordan doesn't look comfortable at fullback. You do wonder if Darcy/steyn/Rowe were in things would be different.

Wow. That was even more annoying than I thought it would be.
Just glad it’s out of the way if I’m being honest.
Scotland v Australia could be unbelievably entertaining.

Beating Australia (am assuming we'll beat Portugal) making it 3 from 4 would make it a respectable autumn for us.

Lose to Australia and all the old doubts will be back upon us.

Problem is the Aussies may well beat Wales next weekend and have their tales up for the game against us, with the possibility of a GS in the offing.

The rest next weekend certainly won't do some of our players any harm at all.

Dempsey looked like he had a bad injury. Hope it’s not gonna keep him out too long.

Urgh, sounds like much the same old v SA, albeit competing for large parts of the game.

For supposedly one of the best attacking teams in the world, we just can't score against SA!

Pretty much. Something really irritated me about Scotland during that game but I couldn't remember earlier, now I do! The high balls. Did anyone catch one? Kinghorn, Russell, VDM all dropped, knocked on and miss timed them. They’ll need to be a lot better against Australia.

I was at the game.
Thought Jordan was great at 15. Great leg drive through contact and he took a beautiful flat pass from Russell, for the almost try from White.

Cummings red and was ludicrous.Pack faught valiantly, but lack of depth at 3 inevitably cost us in the final 15.

Very few kicks caught by our back three but Pollards kicking was on the money.

A loss, but head and shoulders a better effort than the tame performance at the WC.

We actually dealt with the bomb pack better than I thought we would, but still too much forward power in the end.

bsando wrote:Pretty much. Something really irritated me about Scotland during that game but I couldn't remember earlier, now I do! The high balls. Did anyone catch one? Kinghorn, Russell, VDM all dropped, knocked on and miss timed them. They’ll need to be a lot better against Australia.

I listened to the BBC radio Scotland post match discussion. Peter Wright had his usual moan about refs, TMOs etc but Fraser Brown gave some really good insight (he's a great rugby brain - he'll definitely have a good coaching career). That's the one thing he pinpointed more than anything - we didn't win a single kick chase. When your set piece is up against it, strong defence against you etc the one thing you have to do in the modern game is be competitive in the air. This is even more so given the new laws about not blocking players (which caused a bit of havoc this weekend) meaning it's now much easier to compete with the defender.

Is anyone else worried about the poor run of form Duhi is on, his try last week apart, he's been fairly anonymous in attack this past couple of weeks .

If he doesn't sort his form out then he's going to be behind Rowe, Steyn, Darcy and maybe even Reed by the time the 6Ns come around .

I thought he was good when he got the ball in his hands. Not so much in the air. No way he’ll be dropped for the 6N, he’s too deadly.

sensisball wrote:I was at the game.
Thought Jordan was great at 15. Great leg drive through contact and he took a beautiful flat pass from Russell, for the almost try from White.

Cummings red and was ludicrous.Pack faught valiantly, but lack of depth at 3 inevitably cost us in the final 15.

Very few kicks caught by our back three but Pollards kicking was on the money.

A loss, but head and shoulders a better effort than the tame performance at the WC.

We actually dealt with the bomb pack better than I thought we would, but still too much forward power in the end.

I probably sounded harsh on Jordan, he was great in attack, not passing aside, but it was the defence he didn't really look comfortable with, which given how difficult a position it is to defend isn't surprising, especially if you don't play it. I'm more surprised it wasn't the other way around with blairhorn at FB and Jordan on wing.

That being said I think I saw more support from vdm in defence than Blair, which really is saying something!

I know this might be scant comfort after a loss but WOW what a game. I don't always enjoy a game as a neutral but in this case it was absolutely riveting and by some distance the match of the weekend.
Scotland are looking V V dangerous. The 6N could be interesting to say the least.

To my mind, that game was so much more impressive than the world cup loss.

Few of things to note:

1) physicality in defence and attack was much improved - look at Darge, his metres made after contact wasnt because he's all of a sudden bulked up, thats sheer blo0dy determination to keep going.
2) Tom Jordan is excellent at this level but positioning in defence needs worked on at fullback OR keep him as a centre/flyhalf
3) Scotlands contestable high ball game needs worked on. Not clear if tactic is to disrupt or win the ball. If disrupt, seems redundant now you can just line up the reciever for a horrible tackle under the ribs. If win the ball, wrong winger is being picked in Duhan. I know he's injured but Steyn is much better under the high ball, so he should be picked instead if winning the ball is the target. Either the tactics is wrong or the player selection to fit the tactics is wrong, both problems are Gregors to resolve.
4) Scotland did not wilt under the bomb squad. Regular starters for the boks came on and Scotland lifted their game and caused them no problems. only became obvious their was clear improvement from the boks in the last 10 minutes.
5) I reckon they should have gone with Gregor Brown instead of Bayliss on the bench. Bayliss seems a bit small when his opposite number is Weise.

I thought Scotland were excellent and some dubious referring suppressed their scoreline. I still think the boks would have won the game but the scoreline flattered to deceive.

Scotland were not excellent - if they had been they would have won. We were a couple of errors short of good - a couple of passes sticking / chances taken would have made it a good performance and we would have been close at the end. We had no answer to the power of the bok scrum unfortunately
7.5 out of 10

Being excellent doesnt mean you deserve to win, especially when you come up against the world cup winners, rugby championship winners and world no1. You need to be perfect mate.

Scotland for years now have always cut good shape in attack and look pretty going forward. A good side with tendency towards flakiness when the pressure is put on.

There was zero flake from Scotland in attitude. when the ref put unnecessary pressure on Scotland with that abysmal card, in previous years that would have been the game. Scotland actually managed that period fairly well, came back, got into a position where it was 19-16 before a fairly dubious TMO interference brought it back to 19-9.

As i said, couple of tactical and/or selection choices are different, the ref doesnt give that card, its maybe a different result.

I didnt expect a win against the Boks, the difference in squad depth is a gulf. What i wanted to see was a totally different attitude in defence and to have an actual realistic go at beating them.

I agree with your points tramp, there are certainly positives to be taken from that loss. The aggression in attack and defence was excellent at times, world class even. It’s just a shame so many other aspects were well below what we would hope from the national team.

Without slamming the coaches it’s clear in my mind that Scotland need a new head coach with a "boring game plan" to quote Rassie. Toonie doesn’t have the answers for beating the top physical sides. Once England and wales sort their crap out they’ll be added to that category.

Well that was a game that provides mixed feelings. I know Rassie is building depth, but I don't think the lack of continuity in selection is helping. Every match is a nerve wrecking affair due to the players not seeming to gel, it could also be that the Tony Brown style of play struggled when there are continuous selection changes from one match to the next.

Far too many errors by the Boks, some are enforced by the opposition, but most are just silly errors.

Discipline also seems to be an issue, too many point scoring opportunities for opposition teams, it helps to keep scoreboard pressure against us.

Kwagga is not a starter. Hendrickse simply not good enough yet.

At least we won.

It is one of those games where I felt like we were the plucky underdog that did not take the opportunities to win.

The line-out for Du Toit's try, the Ben White mistake and then the call-back for the knock-on were a 21 point swing in SA's favour. Those are the small margins that determine the game let alone the number of times we just could not find the last 5m.

I felt Tom Jordan's move to full-back failed due to his defensive positioning even though his attacking runs were solid. We are down three wingers (Graham, Steyn, Rowe) and two full backs (Ollie Smith, Harry Paterson) that are ahead of him. McKay qualifies before the 2027 RWC if he wants to. It was an experiment but he needs to get way more reps before I would ask him to go there again and I don't see the value. We should persist with him at 10.

Our line-out and scrum struggled, and I wonder if R Gray was picked instead of Gilchrist, would we have cleaned that up significantly? Other refs would also have been quicker about calling use it on some of the pre-70 minute scrum penalties but that is an interpretation and we failed to keep it stable long enough. How we develop proper options in the front five to counter it outside of a third team? Probably we could afford to send front five players down to the Currie Cup and Stade Nicois for a couple of seasons.

Overall, we threw some punches and it was not enough. The defense from SA was excellent and we were metres away from putting 25-30 points against them even with 14 men for 20 minutes. There are things to work on prior to the Six Nations, especially who our back-up TH is.

I tend to disagree about Tom Jordan, who I thought had a very impressive game for a first start.

In truth I don't think I would have been betting my mortgage on Blairhorn making those tackles on Mapimpi in the corner either.

He may gave been a little out of position but the whole defensive line was way to narrow, which just encouraged the kicks in the first place.

I can see him playing FB for Glasgow in the future, especially if Hastings form continues to improve and Franco wants both of them on the pitch. Good options for him to have in truth.

Patterson will likely get a run out next weekend and hopefully Rowe and Graham will be back as well.

Could be interesting selection for the Australia game.

Disappointed like everyone and a bit angry too at another chance missed.

On the fence about Jordan, know Kinghorn has played as many games on the wing as at FB for Toulouse but he looks much more comfortable at FB. Maybe Jordon will become a top notch FB, but you don't throw him against the world's best to gain experience.
The front five would be fine against most countries outside the top 4, but we seriously need to unearth another quality TH and miss the Grays or Skinner from the 2nd row. Gilchrist gave his all but doesn't have the strength/momentum for the Boks or other top 4 teams.
Some things just didn't go for us, a couple of missed passes, DvdM just getting caught and some poor one-sided refereeing decisions; plenty of other comments on the ref which I agree with so won't say more, but it's a tough role and we need good referees and a good system to help game quality. This ref will hopefully be coached on his inadequacies and will be better for it.
The Australia game I expect us to win, although their performance against England is a good wake up call.

At the end of November can consider how we stand for the 6N and inevitably there will be debate on Townsend. Right now we have a fine crop of good players, depth in most positions and the capability to battle with any other side. That may attract a top quality coach. I feel Townsend has been given ample opportunity but has ultimately not made the best use of resources, would like to see how others might do (not Franco though, Glasgow need him).

There may well be scrutiny on Gregor as you say but I still see him get the 6Ns unless we lose to Portugal, losses to Australia and South Africa and a 2/4 will be seen as reasonable by the SRU and tbh I think that would be fair!

I still think that if we play like we did yesterday then we can easily beat Australia who still seem to leak lots of tries so our backline could well have too much for them. I still think it'll be a close nailbiter so hopefully you guys have some sort of drink to help calm the nerves during the game .

I really think Tom Jordan is an option at FB and will likely be second or third choice behind Blair Kinghorn and possibly Kyle Rowe and ahead of Ollie Smith and Harry Paterson going forward .

How much would we need to suck in the 6 Nations for Toonie to be given a cardboard box and told to clear his office?

We would need to beat Wales, Italy and probably also England to be considered as Not Regressing. Two wins only and surely Mr Potato Head has to go.

George Carlin wrote:How much would we need to suck in the 6 Nations for Toonie to be given a cardboard box and told to clear his office?

We would need to beat Wales, Italy and probably also England to be considered as Not Regressing. Two wins only and surely Mr Potato Head has to go.

It is multilayered, but i don't believe Townsend will leave unless it is through his own volition. What we will continue to see happen is the team to stagnate as some of the most promising players we have had in a generation start to retire. Then we will slowly slide down the table. This will run in conjunction with GJPT seeing out his contract and it not being renewed. We will then have wasted a squad with a large number of world class players (and some ok players) with nothing to show for it apart from a couple of wins over England.

Since he took over the coaching role our 6N results have been

2017 - 4th
2018 - 3rd
2019 - 5th
2020 - 4th
2021 - 4th
2022 - 4th
2023 - 3rd
2024 - 4th

We have also failed to get out our group in the last 2 World Cups.

We also lost against the USA, a tier 2 nation.

On top of that his man management has been questionable, and his ability to double down on poor choices amazes me.
Dropping Finn
Selecting Hogg as captain after what has become public knowledge and the stories about the fact no one liked Hogg on the team
Selecting Ali Price after he showed form (in a single game against Cardiff)
I am sure there are more, but these ones are just off the top of my head

The mistake the SRU made was renewing his contract

Oh viddy well my peeps.
It's a real maelstrom, a veritable smorgasbord, of mixed emotions on here.
We lost at home and didn't score a single try.... But, it was against the best team in the world.
We had them under the cosh for large parts of the game if we had scored a try then the flood gates may well have opened.
Duhan and Blarehorn were passengers at best and liabilities at worst on Sunday.
But we, collectively, put in a much better performance against a top three side than we have done in a while.

Look at Saturdays team, make a few little changes;
Bhatti and McBeth on the bench. Mick The Miller Mills was comprehensively schooled on Sunday. Whether he learns anything from the chastening experience remains to be seen.
With a little bit of luck, Cummings would have stayed on the pitch and Max Williamson would not have crawled out of his sick bed to sit on the bench.I saw him leaving the team hotel and he looked ghastly. Grant Gilchrist is a useless big lump. grant Gilchrist was our top tackler on Sunday
Seaman-Mullet-ADHD Kid would have been a much better back three. Yes I know TJ had a good game, but at present he is not our best 10, or 12, or 15. He may very soon become a shoo-in for one of them but he's still learning.
Toonie's a crap coach! He's not making the best of our golden generation.
Toonie's wonderful, he has got us punching above our weight.

It's great being Scottish.