Autumn Nation Series 2024
By Phoebe Awiti
Scotland stayed in the fight throughout but in the end couldn’t come up with a decisive knock-out blow against world champions South Africa in a bruising Murray field encounter.
Makazole Mapimpi was the early victor, his spoils a try from Handré Pollard’s darting cross-field kick which was on the back of an advantage for Pierre Schoeman not leaving a line-out maul swiftly enough. Pollard missed the touchline conversion, but the world champions were in business [0-5, 4 mins].
“They threw everything at this match,” said the commentator of the game, ‘Not much arguing with this. Scotland threw everything at this match, setting their beloved stadium on a roar time and again, but four tries to none tells its own story. And a familiar one at that. South Africa, without ever really seeming to play much more than within themselves, were just too strong.
The image of a lusty puncher failing to land a single blow came to mind, as the Springboks held a swinging Scotland at arm’s length, rarely too troubled, for all their opponents’ fire and enthusiasm. Time and again either side of half-time, Scotland broke out, but they could not quite score a try, let alone four of them. Eben Etzebeth, the only Springbok forward to play the whole match, was the icon, huge, commanding and, at times, laughing in his opponents’ faces.
Scotland settled after that early Boks blitz, Duhan van der Merwe twice making forays into South African territory but just when Finn Russell was about to tee up a penalty goal on the back of Springboks not rolling away at a ruck, Scott Cummings was yellow carded for a neck roll in the act before.
Signs that this was not to be their day came early on, when Scott Cummings was shown a red card for a clear-out on Franco Mostert.
It was a blow the hosts didn’t expect but after a quarter of an hour, Russell did indeed land Scotland’s first points from around 35m after South Africa were adjudged by referee Christophe Ridley of blocking a chase [3-5, 17 mins]. However, Cummings’ yellow was upgraded to a 20-minute red card before the next restart, to the confusion of the Murray field masses.
A tense affair was giving little quarter to either side but when Canan Moodie was penalised for not holding on, Russell landed a long-range cracker to nudge Scotland into the lead [6-5, 21 mins]. Scotland needed to open the points ledger in the second half and when South Africa transgressed at a scrum, Russell landed a fourth penalty to redress arrears to seven [12-19, 43 mins]. And there was time for South Africa to put considerable gloss on the result when Jasper Wiese went over in the final minute, Pollard once more clipping over the conversion [15-32, 80 mins].
“I’m proud of our performance,” said Sione Tuipulotu, Scotland’s captain, during the post match conference. “Just disappointed we didn’t win. We must take responsibility for that. The game was there to be won, but we didn’t execute.”