Springboks v Scotland: Four talking points from 32-15 win at Murrayfield

The Springboks picked up a 32-15 win over Scotland in Edinburgh to get their end-of-year- tour off to the best possible start on Sunday.

But the comfortable looking win was anything but as the hosts pushed the visitors all the way, before late surge put some gloss on the scoreline.

Despite that the Boks will be happy to get off to a winning start, with it being their ninth in 11 games this season, and they will hope to build on that momentum into their coming game against England at Twickenham on Saturday.

Here are four talking points from the match:

Poor set pieces, breakdown and handling

It was a poor showing at the set pieces for the Boks, particularly in the first half, as they missed two early lineouts and had an early engagement at the first scrum of the game to give the Scots a free kick and easy exit.

They then got incredibly lucky in the 30^th minute when another poor lineout on Scotland’s five metre line, which went through the hands of jumper Franco Mostert, went backwards and landed kindly in the hands of prop Thomas du Toit who charged through a gap to score.

The Boks also struggled at the breakdowns over the game, with Scotland regularly flooding the rucks with players, leading to numerous turnovers, while a slew of handling errors to both teams also made things scrappy.

The Boks were the biggest culprits, conceding 14 handling errors over the match, and that could have been very costly for them if it wasn’t for the hosts making eight handling errors of their own to mitigate the damage somewhat.

Poor game management when up a man for 20 minutes

Scotland lock Scott Cummings was very unlucky to be shown a yellow card, that was upgraded to a 20 minute red card, in the 10^th minute of the game for a croc roll on Bok lock Franco Mostert. Croc rolls are terrible and need to be stamped out, but it seemed like more of a slightly poor clean out, as Mostert’s leg was trapped by flank Rory Darge, with Cummings then trying to legitimately clean him off the ball, so there was mitigation.

Despite then enjoying a 20-minute spell with a man advantage, the Boks were unable to make the hosts pay, and were instead on the back foot throughout, as poor game management allowed the Scots to dictate the possession, territory and tempo during this time.

Two penalties from the boot of Finn Russell even saw them go ahead 6-5 after 21 minutes, showing that even when a man up, if you don’t take advantage and play well it won’t matter.

Good finishing and strong defence makes the difference

Over the years the Boks have been known for missing plenty of chances on attack, but slotting their kicks at goal has often helped keep them in the game and get wins over opposition, despite not being able to get over the tryline as much as the opposition.

Against Scotland it was almost the opposite as the Boks went into the final 20 minutes with a slender 19-15 lead, despite having outscored the hosts three tries to nil at that point.

In the end, the Boks managed to get over the whitewash four times, with two good finishes by wing Makazole Mapimpi and a rumbling score to Du Toit in the first half, while a monster scrum in the final minute led to Jasper Wiese having an easy dot down.

The Boks’ defence must again be praised after they kept the attacking-minded Scots tryless for the second straight game, after their 18-3 win at last year’s World Cup. It was also the third game out of 11 this season that the Boks kept a team tryless over the 80, having done it to the Wallabies and All Blacks previously.

The slow poison and ‘nuclear squad’ pay off

You always got the feeling that Scotland would eventually run out of steam, with the number of tackles the Boks were forcing them to make on defence, while they managed to make metres on attack and constant 22m entries throughout the game, but were then stopped by a green wall near the tryline and absolutely smothered as they desperately tried to get over the tryline for that all important score.

But after 60 minutes their only points were five penalties from the boot of Finn Russell, which saw them trailing 19-15, although they did get over the tryline in the first half only for it to be chalked off after the TMO caught a knock-on in the build-up.

The last 20 minutes of the game was then all about the Boks’ power game as they set up two penalties for Handre Pollard, and then scored a converted try on the whistle to clinch a surprising 17-point win in the end, assisted by their seven forward replacements in the second half.