LONG READ 'Scotland swung for the king and missed - but there is much to take from Loftus epic'

There wasn’t enough Klippies and coke in all of Pretoria to settle the heads of the Scotland fans who witnessed the glorious chaos of their bout with the Springboks. This was their team in microcosm: effervescent and errant; wonderful yet wasteful; magnificent and, occasionally, maddening.

Scotland came to the Highveld to play. They kept the ball for nearly nine minutes longer than South Africa. They built 50 more rucks and had a 62% share of the territory. They asked the world champions to attempt an astronomical 261 tackles and forced them to miss 75. They made a ridiculous 17 line-breaks, just seven shy of the free-wheeling Fijians in Cardiff a week earlier. They kicked the ball only 17 times. Rassie Erasmus, the game’s thought-leading coach, labelled Scotland “the third-best team in the world” in his post-match press conference. While it’s best to take Rassie’s praise with a pinch of salt, his public appraisal of opposition teams is generally on the money.

Scotland played the kind of courageous rugby which is not merely their DNA under Gregor Townsend, but the only plausible route to a win over South Africa. They have neither the gene pool nor the ethos to win via blunt instrument, but they can meld a hard edge to the dynamic, inventive, accurate and unrelenting attack they stitched together beautifully for long spells.

The levels of fitness required to play at this tempo and take the Boks to the 12^th round in doing so are absurd. The resilience to claw back deficits of 14 and 21 points to zero and seven respectively are garlands for a group often accused of mental fragility. The belligerence in the carry and the tackle and the efficiency at the cleanout was wonderful to see.

There were colossal performers in there. Sione Tuipulotu, yet again, burnishing his credentials as one of the best centres in the world. The captain played majestically even without Huw Jones riding shotgun alongside him. Ben White is a fabulous scrum-half. Pierre Schoeman, playing on his old patch, Matt Fagerson, Scott Cummings and Jack Dempsey belted into the might of the Boks over and over. The impact from a bench long derided as powderpuff was telling too. Josh Bayliss and Magnus Bradbury were huge contributors. Bayliss does not have the body mass of many Test back-rows but he’s agile and rapid and cast in the Townsend mould.

In Gregor Hiddleston, Scotland have found a Test-match animal. Glasgow fans were up in arms when the hooker was not included in Townsend’s Six Nations group, such has been his immense club form. Townsend went for the set-piece nous of veteran Dave Cherry, but Hiddleston has been the coming man for some time. He was playing for Stirling in the defunct SuperSeries as recently as 2023, flitting between the front and back-row. He’s 24 now and, emphatically, ready for international rugby. In 22 minutes on his second cap, Hiddleston made seven carries for close to 30m.

All this, and yet Scotland still wore the faces of men who’d seen ghosts come full-time. The defeat was painfully reminiscent of the November gut-wrencher against the All Blacks. New Zealand, teetering under Scott Robertson, raced into a two-try lead at Murrayfield, just as the Springboks did on Saturday. Scotland reeled them in, had them rocking, saw All Blacks sent to the bin, then spurned their chances, and wound up losing the game.

On the basis the Boks are rugby’s equivalent of the final boss on a video game – you need hours of YouTube tutorials and multiple cheat codes to beat them – you can’t blow 22 entries as Scotland did. Their conversion rate was 33%. South Africa’s was 50% from the same number of red zone visits.

Come for the king, and you’d best not miss. Scotland missed twice, crucially, while Ben-Jason Dixon languished in the sin bin. A driving maul held up, a ball fumbled near the line. The score was 14-14 then. Scotland remained marooned on 14 points for the entire duration of Dixon’s sanction. In fact, it wasn’t until the 68^th minute and their staggering second coming that they moved the scoreboard again. They lost the contestable kick battle conclusively and ceded momentum.

Scotland’s previous Test in South Africa was in 2014 They haven’t played the Wallabies in Australia in nine years and last faced the All Blacks in New Zealand at the start of the millennium when Townsend was playing and Jonah Lomu was in the opposing backline.

The brutal truth is, South Africa are miles ahead of the rest in just about every sense. This was a Bok team missing a whole galaxy of stars. Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who often burns the brightest, is out with a serious injury. There was no Manie Libbok, Malcolm Marx, Ox Nche, Thomas du Toit, Eben Etzebeth, RG Snyman, Siya Kolisi, Kwagga Smith, Jasper Wiese, Damian de Allende, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Cheslin Kolbe or Canan Moodie. There were still plenty luminaries – Jesse Kriel, Damian Willemse and Handre Pollard are double world champions; Wilco Louw one of the best tightheads in the world – but take Pieter-Steph du Toit out of the starting pack, and the remaining seven forwards had a total of 75 caps.

There is so much to be admired in how Erasmus is approaching his third World Cup cycle. The Springboks are achieving what was commonly thought impossible: building depth, diversifying strategy and still winning high-end Test matches in between World Cups. Erasmus has the benefit of the richest talent pool in the sport, but how he’s harnessed it to create endless options in almost every position. His 2018 rescue mission and sudden ascent to world champion status was built on the traditional South African supremacy at the set-piece. Now, his Boks are playing some outstanding high-octane rugby, sculpted by Tony Brown. And since winning the 2023 final, they have lost only four of 29 matches.

Scotland are in a different place. Their attacking blueprint is clearly defined, and effective even against the best defences around. They have, at points in Townsend’s long tenure, lacked the steel to their game which was on display at Loftus. And they have also searched in vain for consistency of performance, within games and from one Test to the next. That’s been the story of the past year. The November capitulation to Argentina a week after the All Blacks affair. The Six Nations pummelling of France – the most scintillating Scotland display of the millennium – before succumbing to Groundhog Day in Dublin.

Fiji come north this week to close out the opening block of Nations Championship fixtures. That match will yield rotation for Townsend. Partly because it’s necessary – two bruising Test matches, on two continents, at altitude, in seven days at the end of a mega season – and partly to see more of those who have featured only briefly so far. Hiddleston might get his first start. Young Edinburgh men Liam McConnell and Freddy Douglas could see action in the back row. George Horne should get a run, rather than having Jamie Dobie play 80 minutes between wing and scrum-half. Darcy Graham could come into the reckoning too. There is little to be gained from fielding Finn Russell so soon after his calf injury, at the end of what has become a hamster-wheel campaign for those who toured with the Lions 12 months ago.

Fiji, alas, look a pale shadow of the side who took massive scalps over the past three years, including Scotland’s. They beat England before the 2023 World Cup and gave them palpitations in the ensuing quarter-finals. In between those games, they defeated Australia, and would go on to win in Cardiff a year later. They have been highly competitive against France, Australia and England since. And they put the touring Scots away brilliantly last July.

The Flying Fijians would be more competitive and cohesive had their national stadium been large enough to satisfy Nations Championship regulations. Their window, though, has been marred by rancour. The controversial departure of Mick Byrne from the head coach position several months ago. Unsightly criticism from John Sanday, the union’s chair, after a sloppy second half in Wales. “This not a picnic where one goes through the motions,” Sanday said, lamenting a “negative return on investment” on the field as well as the balance sheet. Sanday has spoken about changing the entire culture at Fiji’s Rugby House. He may have a point about the machinations of the business, but public criticism of players from the boardroom rarely ends well.

There’s still an anxiety Scotland’s evolution from nearly men to contenders to actually winning something is happening too slowly, certainly for generational talents such as Russell.

The team have not reacted positively. Inevitably, Fiji captain Tevita Ikanivere was asked about Sanday’s comments after the 11-try shellacking by England and described them as “really disappointing”. He is not the only player to feel this way. Fijians are stoic people but when many of the squad play in elite, highly organised and successful environments across Europe, you have to wonder what they think about this sideshow.

Sanday tasked interim coach Senirusi Seruvakula with winning two of his three July matches. That was a monumental target. He might be looking for another coach soon, but even with Fiji’s glittering roster, which of the game’s top operators would be inclined to work under such conditions?

Scotland will be expected to win well on Saturday. Do so, and they can reflect on an encouraging month’s work – a heavy win in Argentina, going toe-to-toe with the big dogs at Loftus. The Nations Championship is a fillip for them. They have missed out on this stuff for years; watching the rest of the Six Nations embark on blockbuster voyages south of the equator while playing some of the lesser lights on the international stage. They have toured Argentina with Townsend but their last Test in South Africa was in 2014, they haven’t played the Wallabies in Australia since Townsend’s first matches nine years ago and last faced the All Blacks in New Zealand at the start of the millennium when Townsend himself was playing and Jonah Lomu was in the opposing backline.

It is hard to properly road-test young talent, solidify combinations or gauge overall progress against modest opposition. But the ruthless surrounds of Cordoba and Pretoria, where the air is thin and the athletes enormous, are an altogether different proving ground. To beat the All Blacks and Springboks, Scotland need to spend more time in their back yards, and come up against them more than once every few years.

Overall, Scotland are moving in the right direction. The noise around Townsend’s position which hit a crescendo at the turn of the year has been quieted. But there’s still an anxiety their evolution from nearly men to contenders to actually winning something is happening too slowly, certainly for generational talents such as Russell.

The pandemonium of Pretoria was by turns breathtaking, exhilarating and heartening, but for all the pride, a gnawing sense of an opportunity squandered remains.