There may have been some nerves along the way, and there was certainly good reason for the Springboks to feel jittery, but ultimately the Pool B clash in Marseille on Sunday confirmed what we already knew — there’s a top four in this World Cup, and then the rest.
As they started this tournament ranked fifth in the World Rugby rankings, the Scots had every right to consider themselves the best of the chasing pack that will be trying to make a dent on the anticipated dominance of France, SA, Ireland and New Zealand. After the first weekend of competition, you might argue that England, who won their Pool D decider against Argentina so comfortably, are challenging Scotland for the tag, but make no mistake, it is the “best of the rest” tag they are competing for, and not the Webb Ellis trophy itself.
It was second against fifth in the world in Marseille, and the end margin of 15 points flattered the fifth-ranked team. The Boks should have made more of the opening quarter, in which they looked to be suffocating their opponents but not for the first time struggled to convert their dominance into points.
The Scots were passionate in their resistance and the longer they kept the South Africans from going more than a score clear, the more confident they became in their ability to stand up to the onslaught from the reigning world champions. Indeed, for much of the second quarter, it was Scotland who had the more clear-cut scoring opportunities.
But there’s a lot of sense in that old image of slow poison taking effect, and it has often been used when referencing the Boks, and that is what happened under the Stade Velodrome lights. Whatever coach Jacques Nienaber said at halftime had a dramatic effect, as the Boks came out with the intensity and ferocity that was needed, and within 10 minutes it was effectively game, set and match to SA.
The Boks will have been mightily relieved to get off to a winning start as they have spoken a lot about the fact that their participation in the so-called group of death, Pool B, effectively put them on a knock-out footing from the off. By picking up the points for the win though, and with Ireland the only other team in the group really capable of beating them, a lot of the pressure is now off, with the big game against Ireland on September 23 likely to be about seeing which team finishes first and therefore plays New Zealand instead of France in the quarterfinal stage in mid-October.
Promising signs
Though the All Blacks were well beaten in the opener by France on Friday night, and it was the second consecutive game they lost emphatically if you place it alongside the mauling they suffered at the hands of the Boks at Twickenham two weeks ago, the debate over which team the Boks should prefer to play is a bit like comparing six of the one to half-a-dozen of the other.
The All Blacks did show enough promising signs at the Stade de France to send out a reminder that they should still be feared, and they will have some key players back by the time the quarterfinal round comes into focus.
I do think the Boks have a much better pack than the Kiwis, but against Scotland, who are like a lightweight version of the All Blacks in the way they play the game, the Boks retained that old concerning habit of not converting physical and territorial dominance into something meaningful on the scoreboard.
Manie Libbok was quite sublime on occasions and his cross-kick to put Kurt-Lee Arendse in for the second SA try underlined why it isn’t a simple case of the more experienced man just returning into the No 10 jersey he wore in Japan in 2019 should Handré Pollard be given a gap through injury to play at this World Cup.
Libbok is a special player and has the ability to break the game open with his skills, and in Marseille he showed some defensive ability too. There’s no denying either though that he is susceptible when it comes to placekicking in the high-pressure games, so the Bok brains trust has some thinking to do. Perhaps we saw the product of their thoughts when Faf de Klerk took over the placekicking duties. He slotted one difficult kick and missed another.
Hopefully the shoulder injury that forced Eben Etzebeth off halfway through the first half won’t be serious, as he is an important player to the Boks. However, right now the feeling in the Bok camp should just be one of huge relief as the Scottish game was just one of those in which one team, the South Africans, had so much to lose.
That’s not to say the Scots didn’t have anything to lose, and having three of the top five in one pool is beyond ridiculous, but not making it out of the group stage would have been particularly calamitous for the reigning world champions.
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