Scotland v South Africa Saturday 17th November

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Scotland v South Africa
BT Murrayfield Stadium
Edinburgh

Saturday 17th November
KO 17.00


Well another interesting game coming up between two old rivals.

Scotland found their form with a vengeance this Saturday, putting a much fancied Fiji side to the sword very emphatically. They are a team who have very good home form now and they will see this as their biggest test of the autumn.

South Africa are also on the up and playing much better under Erasmus, with a noticeable scalp of the All Blacks this season and beating England in a series over the summer. Recent form is a bit mixed, they lost a game they should have won against England and won a game they should have lost against France, so hard to know just what to read into that. It has been a long hard season for them and it is not going to be easy stringing together 4 hard tests in 4 weekends.

Scotland will have the advantage of having been able to rest and rotate a few of their players. The question remains though will Toonie go all out with his strongest team for this one (does he even know what his strongest team is?) or will he continue with some gentle tinkering, as is his want and maybe even introduce a few new players into the mix. Will we see Gary Graham capped for instance in his first appearance in a Scotland squad after a road to Damascus moment sometime over breakfast (humble pie on the menu) this weekend.

My stab at the Scotland team before we get a few clues with media interviews during the week:

Nel
McInally
Dell
Gray
Skinner
Wilson
Strauss
Watson
Laidlaw
Russell
Seymour
Dunbar
Jones H
Maitland
Hogg

Allen
Brown
Berghan
Gilchrist
Graham
Horne G
Hastings
Kinghorn

Tough one, but if you go for a ball one handed you take the risk

Harsh call ...

And that is why I can't stand Poite

Yellow card?!

That is f***inf appalling. How the hell else are you meant to intercept it? If it sticks to his hand he scores a try. It glanced off so his intentions were different??? Ridiculous!

Even as a Scotland fan I’m annoyed at that call, totally unfair

That’s one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen

Biltong wrote:I can't stand Poite, but he is having a good game

Was until that howler

Absolutely diabolical decision. The worst of the autumn.

Poite is Poopie...

Poor restart from Scotland again

We need to sacrifice a few rabbits to the restart gods

Yeah dumb decision. Ok on a short pass where he gets in the way and knocks it down but this was long advertised pass where it was practically just ball in play by time it hit LeRoux.

Hard yellow but if you jump in the air one handed and barely get the tips of your fingers you leave it open for that call to be made

Surprise, surprise. Poite having another shocker. I shudder every time I see him down to ref a Springbok game. While I'm moaning, how difficult would it be for professional commentators to research how to pronounce player's names. "Snaaiman" anyone?

Bad decision to go for goal after the yellow

This yellow card does not seem to have done Scotland any favours!

Great run Huw Jones

Horrible execution of the kick by Finn there

STOP FU*KING KICKING IT TO THEM RUSSELL YOU USELESS TW*T

Bizarre from Russell.

Big call!

Wrong call!!

Felt like the wrong call at the time, and so it turns out

Hoogy off

Hope that’s not Hogg’s sore ankle!!!

We’ve really been schooled at the breakdown today.

He turned it trying to make the tackle

Luckily Pollard has lost his kicking boots

Can Hogg be the hero yet again; its poised for a very tense last 10

Finn is having a bit of a howler, time to get Hastings on

Pie wrote:Can Hogg be the hero yet again; its poised for a very tense last 10

Not if he's not on the pitch

Russell having one of those games. If not for Huw Jones' magic they would be in serious trouble

Finn's been crap

lostinwales wrote:

Pie wrote:Can Hogg be the hero yet again; its poised for a very tense last 10

Not if he's not on the pitch

ugh took a no 2 so was he taken off? wtf

How many more errors are the Boks going to commit?

Biltong wrote:How many more errors are the Boks going to commit?

Not as many as us Bilt, you’re going to win this

We need a try now

Pie wrote:

lostinwales wrote:

Pie wrote:Can Hogg be the hero yet again; its poised for a very tense last 10

Not if he's not on the pitch

ugh took a no 2 so was he taken off? wtf

turned his ankle following up a kick

That was never on and we just gave the ball away, not clever

very even game but you have to say Boks the better side largely because Russell creates so much risk when Scots in possession. A little regression as well from Scots as they were going lateral a lot in possession and coughed up possession easily which I haven't seen from them for a while.

That was a penalty at the previous ruck, could be a yellow

That was a ‘Farrell’!

Another bossing at the breakdown.

Men against boys

Maybe some hope after the silly play

The one that should be yellow, he does not give

Poite should have officiated England vs SA, that cleanout had at least on arm wrapped.

Farrell had none

Crazy sport when a try intercept is deemed a yellow but a dangerous clearout (which the ref just said ‘but it was dangerous’ to the tackler) is only a penalty!

Poor maul from Scotland, SA very strong as you would expect

Massively disappointing result. We’re a better side than that performance and we have gifted them that win.

Disappointing.

We had no go forward. Apart from breaks in open okay we didn’t get over the gain line.

Most forwards were anonymous at best. Special mention to Ryan Wilson for doing nothing but jogging about and being all at sea for the 2 SA tries.

Congrats on the win to the Boks. Played the simple game better then we did and utterly dominated the breakdown

Excellent game by Scotland, they certainly look a different team to five years ago when they couldn't buy a try on the black market.