Townsend still hasn’t figured out how to get statement win as another opportunity slips away

By GRAEME MACPHERSON

Published: 21:58 GMT, 10 November 2024 | Updated: 21:58 GMT, 10 November 2024

That elusive victory over one of rugby’s major powerhouses continues to feel like a mirage in the desert for Scotland.

It seems tantalisingly within the grasp of Gregor Townsend and his players but, whenever they get close to a landmark win, it suddenly disappears from view.

That was the story of another frustrating evening for Scotland at Murrayfield. Just as in the teams’ previous meeting at last year’s World Cup, they had South Africa within reach for long spells, trailing only by seven points with seven minutes left in the contest.

A converted try would have lifted the roof off the stadium but it never really looked like coming despite numerous entries into the South Africa 22. At that stage, poor decision-making and some doughty defence proved costly to Scotland’s intentions.

The 17-point margin of victory may have flattered the visitors — man-of-the-match Eben Etzebeth conceded as much afterwards — but given they denied Scotland a try for the second match on the bounce it is hard to argue too vehemently that the home team deserved to win.

South Africa didn’t start at full strength — the bomb squad appeared en masse five minutes into the second half — but even then they looked relatively comfortable as they coped with the best that Scotland could offer.

Gregor Townsend’s Scotland team have been unable to crack the game’s toughest nuts

Captain Sione Tuipulotu says Scotland are getting closer to toppling one of the leading sides

Eben Etzebeth said that the 17-point margin of victory at Murrayfield flattered South Africa

It adds to the feeling that Scotland simply cannot crack the toughest nuts. It is now 14 years since their previous win over the Springboks and seven since the last victory over Ireland. They have never beaten the All Blacks despite coming close on occasion. Even Australia in a fortnight now starts to look a somewhat tougher proposition after the Wallabies’ win over England.

Scotland could, in fairness, point to a number of mitigating factors for failing to get this one over the line. They fell on the wrong side of the match officials on a number of occasions, most notably at the decision to upgrade Scott Cummings’ early yellow card to a 20-minute red. Townsend also bristled at seeing what would have been a try just before the interval chalked off for a knock-on ‘three phases earlier’, as well as the call not to show a second yellow card to South Africa for repeat team offences when Scotland had them under the pump for a spell.

Sione Tuipulotu had spoken before the match of the need to compile a landmark victory to help them move from contenders to genuine challengers. Being knocked out at the group stage of the last two editions of the World Cup and having never finished higher than third in the Six Nations shows that there is a way to go on that front, although Tuipulotu was adamant after this one that they are getting closer to knocking over one of the leading sides.

‘I definitely think we’ve made growth in how we performed today from how we performed against that team last time at the World Cup,’ he said. ‘I thought there were so many growth areas in how we played. Like our ability not to get frustrated when we were down with that red card, then a few ref calls going their way and the line-out when they scored through the tap-back and straight through the line-out. We showed emotional maturity in those moments and they’re a big part of what we’ve been trying to get better at.’

All of that was valid. In truth, however, Scotland also had themselves to blame at other times, either through weak decision-making or by butchering opportunities through poor execution. Knock-ons, a wayward line-out throw from a promising position and poor passes all proved detrimental to their prospects.

The chances that were run in at will last week against Fiji aren’t quite as easy to convert when you’re up against the double world champions, although Finn Russell’s metronomic kicking off the tee at least kept the scoreboard ticking over.

In the end, it was another instance of what might or could have been. The top teams find a way to get it done and that is something Scotland fail to do.

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Townsend still hasn’t figured out how to get statement win as another opportunity slips away

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