Laidlaw and Co agree it was a bruising lesson
THE FRUSTRATION felt by Scotland captain Greig Laidlaw seemed plain at St James’ Park last night when he took a yellow card for the team as his professional foul on Bryan Habana cost him 10 minutes in the sin-bin.
But the Borderer and his teammates admitted this was the most punishingly brutal game they had played in.
Even when they were being steamrolled early on, they never felt they would suffer a record hammering.
‘I didn’t feel it would be as bad as that,’ he said, ‘but we didn’t start well and it’s like any game of rugby when the lineout starts to creak and you don’t get possession.
‘You can’t defend against South Africa or any team for 80 minutes.
‘We were under pressure and spoke about that at half-time, about trying to hold the ball longer and cut down the error count.
‘We did that better but still too many errors crept into our game in the second half.
‘It was difficult for Duncs (Duncan Weir) and I to get something going because we were losing the collisions. It’s always tough as a half-back to control the game when you’re under that pressure, the breakdown is a mess and they were slowing up our ball.
‘Samoa are slightly different to South Africa, but we need to win the battles against them next week. That will be a key area for us again.’
There was no hiding from the physicality of a Springbok pack, however, that is the strongest in the world when it takes the direct route.
Lock Richie Gray has experienced it before, and similar confrontations in French rugby, but admitted that this was harder than any game he has played in.
He said: ‘That was very physical, the hardest I’ve played in. We knew they’d come out the blocks hard, so it was no surprise — but it was very tough to stop.
‘We’re disappointed in ourselves for that first 30 minutes. At this moment, I feel bad because we didn’t get it right.
‘Credit to the guys for coming out and fronting up in the second half but, to be honest, by then it was too late.’
Richie Vernon justified his selection at outside-centre with a fine display in defence alongside Matt Scott against two young centres in Jesse Kriel and Damian de Allende — who are rated the most promising pairing in the world game — but he was not looking for excuses for the defeat.
‘It was a physical Boks team but it’s frustrating for us because we felt we could match up to them, and we didn’t.
‘We didn’t do it enough in the first half and that’s why we found ourselves behind.
‘You’ve always got to look at yourselves. We knew what we had to do to perform but we didn’t step up.
‘It’s a Boks team that has been galvanized by their first defeat (against Japan), but we didn’t execute what we wanted to do and that’s the most annoying thing right now.’
As for what damage this may have done to the confidence building in the Scotland camp in recent weeks, there was a similarly unanimous response from the players.
Vernon added: ‘We got together after the game and said we hadn’t competed the way we wanted to for 80 minutes.
‘We need to sharpen things up to reach the quarter-finals and then win those knockout games. The confidence is still there that we can do that.
‘We’ve played three games, played brilliantly in two, in patches against South Africa, but we know we’re still in a good position to qualify.’
Gray agreed but warned that it would be dangerous to underestimate Samoa after they were effectively knocked out by Japan.
He said: ‘Samoa will be hurting and very dangerous, because they will want to prove people wrong.’