The Springboks regained their No 1 spot in the World Rugby rankings with a comprehensive 32-15 win over Scotland at Murrayfield on Sunday as they started their three match tour on a positive note.
When a team hasn’t played together for six weeks and then on top of that 11 changes are made to the starting team there will always be an element of rust and there was plenty of that from the Boks. They made a plethora of mistakes, with late in the game the handling error count being as high as 13.
Up against a Scotland team that attacked the breakdowns with tigerish ferocity, they struggled to hold onto the ball, with their error rate preventing them from picking up the momentum and sustaining it. Against another team that might have been telling, but the Boks, particularly once the seven man Bomb Squad came on in the second half, just suffocated the Scots out of the game in the scrums after halftime.
It meant the Scots were down to 14 men for 20 minutes, and thanks to their error rate, the Boks never took full advantage. Russell kicked two penalties to put the Scots into a 6-5 lead by the 20 minute mark. At that point the hosts had scored six points to nil in 15 minutes of Scotland being down to 14 men.
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