Gregor Townsend’s emphatic verdict on Springboks’ world’s best question as Scotland rues costly decision
Scotland's Josh Bayliss and an inset of head coach Gregor Townsend.
Gregor Townsend says that, in hindsight, he used his bench too late against the Springboks, who deserve their world-best billing.
Scotland fronted up against the Boks in South Africa for the first time since 2013 on Saturday evening in the Nations Championship, falling to a 42-28 defeat.
The visitors scored four tries to the hosts’ six but caused Rassie Erasmus’ charges all kinds of issues throughout the 80 minutes, with the two sides heading into the half-time break all square at 14 points apiece.
While South Africa started to pull away through tries from Elrigh Louw, Damian Willemse and Zach Porthen, opening up a 35-14 lead, Scotland made a good fist of a comeback through Josh Bayliss and Ben White tries in the final quarter.
Learning from past encounters
However, Jesse Kriel’s try in the 77th minute sealed the deal for the Springboks, who notched up their 10th straight international win and completed a clean sweep of the Six Nations and Rugby Championship teams over the past calendar year.
Speaking after the match, head coach Townsend was proud of the effort that his charges produced, particularly in the final quarter as the last 20 minutes of Test matches proved to be a real issue for the Scots last November.
“We’ve been involved in a few games where there have been big momentum swings, and you have to keep calm, keep control, talk about what the solutions are when the momentum’s against you,” he said.
“But you’ve got to make sure that when the momentum’s with you, you’re scoring points. And we did that in the second half, but later on, we didn’t do that enough in the first half and at the beginning of the second half.”
Costly call against the world’s best
The former fly-half added that he perhaps should have made changes earlier in the second half but said so with the luxury of hindsight.
“It’s also a 23-man game, and I felt our bench did really well when they came on,” he said.
“The starters put in a huge effort but the bench were the ones that were making those line breaks and finishing off opportunities. So that’s a lesson for us too. Perhaps we could have got the bench on earlier – easy in hindsight, but they certainly made a big, big impact when they came on.”
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Asked whether South Africa were deserving of their number one billing in the world, Townsend’s response was emphatic.
“Yes,” he said with a broad smile before continuing: “They showed it again today. They’ve obviously got huge strength and depth.
“They won a number of games in November when they were down to 14 men, and they found a way to win today. So, I would like to hope that they knew they were up against a serious opponent today and we’re disappointed we didn’t win, but credit goes to them for finding a way to win.”
Rassie Erasmus praises Scotland
Meanwhile, Erasmus spoke equally glowingly about the Scots during his post-match press conference, saying that they expected Townsend’s men to be a tougher challenge than England and that they were the perfect opponents to test the level of several squad members.
“Sometimes we must put our personal goals to one side of how many games you’ve won in a row or even putting winning this championship on the line so that you can know who can do what,” he said.
“If you don’t make those calls you would never know. When do you do it? Are you always going to do it when you play a team that’s not of this calibre – because I think they are a great team. That’s how you find out.
“It’s tense, there’s pressure, there’s a crowd who’ve bought tickets because they want to watch this game – they don’t even know the players so well because they’re not even settled test match players!
“So, for those guys to feel the crowd going quiet when it’s not going so well. That’s the only way we can ever learn. I’m not saying this to make out performance sound better – and I don’t want to upset the English – but we thought they were going to be tougher than England.
“The way they smashed Argentina, the way they beat England, the way they beat France and were playing just four months ago in the Six Nations, we knew it was going to be a really tough game.”
