‘Massive mitigating circumstances’ – Gregor Townsend reflects on ‘very harsh red’ against the Springboks
Scotland Scott Cummings clear out and an insert of head coach Gregor Townsend.
Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend believes that Scott Cummings’ red card against the Springboks was ‘very harsh’.
Referee Christophe Ridley yellow carded the Scotland lock in the 10th minute of the match after a crocodile roll on Springboks second rower Franco Mostert. The match official sent the incident to be reviewed by the foul play officer who upgraded the yellow to a red card, reducing Scotland to 14 men for 20 minutes.
Earlier this year, World Rugby banned the use of the crocodile roll at rucks in an effort to further protect the players with the action often leading to serious knee and leg injuries.
On Sunday, Cummings was deemed to have also dropped his weight on the lower limbs of Mostert which further contributed to his sending off but Townsend believes that it was still enough mitigation to not result in a red card.
“Very harsh red”
“At the time I thought they got the wrong person, I thought that Rory Darge had come across his side more and then there was another angle where Scott’s movement did land on the leg of the player who was jackling,” Townsend said after the 32-15 loss to the Springboks.
“But there was massive mitigating circumstances, Scott was there to clear contact and the scrum half popped up as he was clearing contact which took him off his feet.
“He did land on the jackling player’s leg but it’s such a dynamic game and you’re hitting those contacts at huge speed. I thought was a very harsh red.”
With the 20-minute red card in place for the Autumn Nations Series, Scotland were able to replace Cummings before half-time after managing to keep the Springboks largely at bay for the period of time that they were reduced to 14-men.
Best Scotland performance
The full-time scoreline certainly flattered the Springboks – something even head coach Rassie Erasmus admitted – and for the Scotland boss, he felt that was one of his team’s better performances in recent seasons.
“I thought it was one of our best performances in the last few seasons,” he said.
“To put in a performance like that up against the world champions, you’ve got to bring your own physicality and match their physicality, you have got to work as hard as you’ve ever work and I felt our players did that when you consider that we were down a man for 20 minutes and that player being a second rower.
“Sione Tuipulotu talked about how well they managed that 20 minutes but also that it takes a huge effort to get through that and the effort was there in the second half when the game was opening up. We looked at times, the fitter team and it looked like they were sharper.”
Luck was on the Springboks’ side
Townsend added that there was an element of luck in the defeat and that it favoured South Africa and used Thomas du Toit’s try as an example of that.
“There’s a huge amount of pride and not just pride but pleasing aspects of the performance – there is some scale execution that we have to improve but I also felt we had a bit of bad luck,” he continued.
“We stole a lineout in our 22 and the ball bobbled into their hands and they scored seven points when they hadn’t had much pressure. Huw’s [Jones] knock-on chalks off the try after three phases, I don’t know whether you’re supposed to go back more than two phases but it was a knock on so we can’t get around that but those are moments in the game seven, 14 points that would have put us in a better position.
“I think the question earlier about not scoring tries is a valid one but also they were giving away a lot of penalties and penalties that went to three, six, nine and 12 – yellow cards, there could have been a second yellow card when Ben White was taken out five metres from the line so I felt we had enough pressure and positions to score more points so we’ll look at how we can improve.”
Scotland now turn their focus to Portugal before they close off their international season against Australia.
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