Strauss double sinks Scotland
Nov 17,2012
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Two tries from Adriaan Strauss helped South Africa to a 21-10 victory over a brave but inefficient Scottish side at Murrayfield on Saturday.
A dominant first-half performance saw the visitors take a 14-3 lead into the interval thanks to Strauss's first try - off a rolling maul that Scotland failed to deal with - and three penalties from Pat Lambie.
The Bok vice-captain extended the visitors' lead early in the second period with an intercept try from long range but Scotland ruled the last 30 minutes.
A try from replacement scrum-half Henry Pyrgos got the hosts back into contention and only long periods of committed defence from the Springboks kept the free-running hosts at bay.
For 45 minutes the Scots were simply unable to match the Springboks' power in the contact areas and Francois Louw made life miserable for the men in blue with his pilfering work at the breakdown.
But in a dramatic change of roles, the hosts upped their game significantly as the game progressed and Heyneke Meyer would have been a worried man as he watched his side struggle to get out of their own half in the last quarter.
Indeed, Andy Robinson would have been mighty frustrated at the full-time whistle after seeing his team waste a handful of opportunities with some terrible decision making.
Lambie and his opposite number Greig Laidlaw exchanged early penalties before the Boks rumbled over the whitewash for the first try of the game at the end of the first quarter.
Scotland had hoped to negate the threat of the Springbok maul by not allowing it to form but failed dismally in executing their plan and were left red-faced as they scrambled to stop the green machine from advancing forward for what turned out to be an easy first Test try for Strauss.
The Bok defence looked impenetrable and Lambie could add his third penalty to give the visitors an 11-point lead at the break.
The game looked done and dusted when Strauss intercepted Mike Blair to race 40 metres and score under the sticks but the Scottish reply was impressive although not always effective.
Blair was replaced by Pyrgos, who had a massive impact on the home side's attack.
Scotland opted to kick for touch from a penalty and Pyrgos ran in untouched as he collected Kelly Brown's pass and went straight through a hole in the line-out.
Scotland had the Boks under cosh for most of the remainder of the game, but were unable to break down the well-organised South African defence, even when Flip van der Merwe saw yellow in the dying stages.
Man of the match: Francois Louw was fantastic once again and Henry Pyrgos deserves a mention but you can't overlook the man who scored two tries, Adriaan Strauss.
Moment of the match: Scotland were always going to struggle to get back into the game once they had conceded the first try. The Bok rolling maul strikes again!
Villain of the match: No nasty stuff to report.
The scorers:
For Scotland:
Try: Pyrgos
Con: Laidlaw
Pen: Laidlaw
For South Africa:
Tries: Strauss 2
Cons: Lambie
Pens: Lambie 3
Yellow card: Van der Merwe
Scotland: 15 Stuart Hogg, 14 Sean Lamont, 13 Nick De Luca, 12 Matt Scott, 11 Tim Visser, 10 Greig Laidlaw, 9 Mike Blair, 8 David Denton, 7 John Barclay, 6 Kelly Brown (c), 5 Jim Hamilton, 4 Richie Gray, 3 Euan Murray, 2 Ross Ford, 1 Ryan Grant.
Replacements: 16 Dougie Hall, 17 Kyle Traynor, 18 Geoff Cross, 19 Alastair Kellock, 20 Stuart McInally , 21 Henry Pyrgos, 22 Ruaridh Jackson, 23 Peter Murchie.
South Africa: 15 Zane Kirchner, 14 JP Pietersen, 13 Juan de Jongh, 12 Jean de Villiers (c), 11 Francois Hougaard, 10 Pat Lambie, 9 Ruan Pienaar, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Willem Alberts, 6 Francois Louw, 5 Juandré Kruger, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 Adriaan Strauss, 1 Gurthrö Steenkamp.
Replacements: 16 Schalk Brits, 17 Heinke van der Merwe, 18 CJ van der Linde, 19 Flip van der Merwe, 20 Marcell Coetzee, 21 Morné Steyn, 22 Jaco Taute, 23 Lwazi Mvovo.
Venue: Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh
Referee: George Clancy (Ireland)
Assistant referees: John Lacey (Ireland), Christophe Berdos (France)
Television match official: Eric Gauzins (France)
Comments (7)
Nov 17, 2012 at 21:25:06
Boring as fok,, one dimensional as fok,,, pienaar kicking away good attacking ball,,, our wings never touched the ball all game,,, that was pathetic,, we need a coach who is going to get this team playing 15 man rugby,, not this boot an hope shit,,, our back line don't even know how to run anymore,,,, fok I can't wait till feb to see some proper rugby when the s15 starts... Meyer u r a Kak coach bru!!
Nov 18, 2012 at 08:48:29
Where has the running Pat Lambie gone? HM has coached the running game out of this youngster and he will do the same to Goosen. Damm, he played like a clone of Morne Steyn!!! The game plan stinks and we will get buried by decent opposition, starting next week with the Poms. JDV is absolute kak, ole DeJongh never smell a decent pass from his inside centre because all JDV can do is run the ball up and crash it, geez what a frikken waste.
Heyneke Meyer is clearly not the man to take the Bokke forward, they have just taken 10 steps back with the ole skop, jaag en donder!!!! Bloody hell foolish @!#$%en rugby!!!
CJ 'penalty machine' VD Linde is just a big lump of liability!!! Flip, Juandre, Hougaard, JDV and Gurthro should never be in this team. It also looks like Mark Andrews was right about Eben Etzebeth, he needs to focus on his primary role of enforcer and leave the ball carrying to the other guys. We are in serious trouble with this knuckle-head of a coach!!!
Nov 18, 2012 at 11:18:13
After PDV i thought great new coach who could be worst.....HM!!!!!!!! Please bring PDV back im sure he will do a better job now that he has learnt the tricks of the trade.....This HM is SHIT!!!!!END OF!!!! Please fire him now and bring in JW to repair all the work that has been thrown down the drain even though i know he wont take the job!!!! We are fucked!!! THank you ANC for pushing JW out you have done an amazing job of reducing the BOKs to Bafana. It seems that Mediocre is your mission in everything!!! Cause thats what we are!!!! Wankerz!!!
Nov 19, 2012 at 14:04:35
completely agree, this not the same Lambie that played for the Sharks, coach has obviously had such an affect on his kicking game that he has lost all his creative flair, which is the reason he has got this far.
also cant wait till S15 where we can watch some positive running rugby
Nov 19, 2012 at 15:37:59
Well apparently amongst other supporters they feel HM is doing a good job of blooding younger players and using some vets to get the wins until other players get back from injury. So im running with that but if we dont win the next castle nations then fuck that im jumping ship all together because that is getting embarassing every year. No excuses next year. Lets see if he lets the boys run wild next year!
Nov 17, 2012 at 19:41:32
After a positive 1st half, where we were getting quick ball, and kicking less, its like Heyneke told the team, at half time, to revert back to the old Gameplan. That Kick & Chase Bullsh*t. It was really sad to see that we completely dominated the game for the 1st 60 minutes, and then ended up hanging on for dear life. Against a team that lost every game in this year's 6 Nations, including losing to Italy. Poor Gameplan yet again. Flip VD Merwe & CJ VD Linde play negative Rugby, and are known culprits for ill-discipline. CJ gave away 3 straight arm penalties at scrum time. He's always been one to give away unnecessary penalties. He's been a Cancer to the Bok side for almost a decade now.But in the end, its Brain Dead Coaching. Very disappointing overall performance in the end.
Nov 17, 2012 at 20:46:31
Congrats on the win but im just so not convinced of the game plan. A win is a win but why do we have to struggle against the weakest teams these days. Why is our rugby gone so stale. With all that speed in our backline why do we go so flat. Its going to be a bumpy road ahead. Where is the intelligence gone, set peice with a trick to flip the lid. We are starting to look like the old Samoa. Just finsh the year on a high and go back to the drawing board time to take Castle Nations Seriously!