Scots turn it into a ‘Grand Slump’ for Boks

As the final whistle sounded on an epic 21-17 Scotland win and put to an end one of the more clueless Springbok performances of a lamentable year, the Murrayfield fans broke out into an emotional rendition of a song which might have been quite apt for the juncture South African rugby now finds itself.

“I’ll take the high road and you take the low road, and I’ll be in Scotland before thee…”

The Springboks aren’t coming back here in a hurry. But they are going to the World Cup. Which road are they going to take?

On the evidence of a performance which once again underlined the unpalatable truth that the Springboks cannot always just expect to survive on the attitude and blood and guts approach that saw them through the first two games of this tour, they do need to take a new road.

If it were not for the presence back home of fine coaches such as John Plumtree, Allister Coetzee, Rassie Erasmus and Heyneke Meyer; if the South African Super 14 teams had continued to struggle like they used to and did not dominate this season’s competition; if South Africa was Italy and they did not have such enviable depth of players, yesterday’s performance might have been excusable.

But there are good coaches back home, there is plenty of talent, and it would be remiss of the South African Rugby Union officials charged with the task of making decisions and plotting the way forward not to recognise this.

This performance was as clueless as the one that saw a much less talented Bok side lose 21-6 here in 2002.

The attitude of the players on this tour, superbly led by Victor Matfield, has been laudable, but yesterday the Boks were well beaten by a Scotland team that was smashed 49-3 by the All Blacks a week ago.

It might be scant consolation for beleaguered Springbok coach Peter de Villiers that he did get something right this week – the Scotland team that won here are deserving of both his and his team’s respect.

The final score will suggest the game was close, and it was, with Willem Alberts pouncing on a misdirected throw, intended for Matfield, to score a try eight minutes from time that gave the Boks hope.

Had the Boks fought back to win a game they didn’t deserve to, like last week, it would have been a travesty of justice.

Beyond the first 10 minutes, when the Boks appeared to be winning the collisions, Scotland were the better team – and by some distance.

They fronted up physically after those initial minutes and played the more tactically astute game in the conditions.

Matfield admitted the tactics had let his side down.

“There has been a lot of talk about us needing to be more expansive in our approach and maybe we paid too much attention to that,” said Matfield.

“These weren’t the right conditions to play expansively, and we made too many mistakes in our own half.”

It was quite an admission to make, for playing the game in the right parts of the field when it is wet is one of the unchangeable fundamentals of rugby.

Kudos went to the Boks last week for the way they gutsed it out to win against Wales (who were held to a 16-16 draw by Fiji two days ago and are still on a long sequence of matches without a win), but while the win was the bottom line, they did not play well.

There has been no sign of growth in the Bok game since then and if anything, they have regressed. They won against Ireland because they played the conditions properly, but in this match they didn’t.

And of all the confounding decisions on the day, surely the one to bring Patrick Lambie on with 20 minutes to go was the worst. Lambie is a fine player, but at this stage of his career he is not a wet weather player.

Lambie missed the conversion to the Alberts try that, had it been slotted, would have put the Boks within goalkicking range of a win. Had Steyn been there, and had the Boks gone just two behind, it might have been a different game in the last eight minutes.

“If we look at the Morne Steyn incident in isolation then it might have been a mistake, but if you look at the bigger picture towards next year’s World Cup then you have to say that the players need to get experience of playing in these conditions,” said De Villiers.

He said Scotland had played the conditions better. So the Grand Slam dream is over and so too possibly is the prospect of salvaging something.

The Boks might dig deep and summon up enough energy for a face-saving win over England on Saturday. But even if that did happen, this tour will be remembered for the loss to Scotland.

It doesn’t happen very often. - Weekend Argus