Scotland welcome the South Africa’s Springboks, champions of the southern hemisphere, champions of the world, champions of the sort of rugby to make grown men cower, to Edinburgh on Sunday – and they know this is when it gets horribly serious.
It has been faintly amusing, faintly absurd, to watch South Africa’s head coach, Rassie Erasmus, try to mount a charm offensive during the week, all touchy-feely, we-want-to-be-loved one minute, all seven-one-split-on-the-bench, hear-our-roar the next. The Springboks know how to win rugby matches; it seems winning hearts is their next directive.
This should not be quite as hard as they are making out. The old Bomb Squad cliche is very much based on a thing, but South Africa can cut teams to shreds as beautifully as they can bludgeon them to death brutally – and this has been the case for a while. Still, the squad Erasmus has picked for Scotland, even while he protests to the world that he and his boys just want to be loved, suggests they have brutality in mind.
Scotland respond to the menace of the Springboks by fielding six forwards on their bench, once an outlandish device, now perfectly common in the savage world of international rugby.
It was last year that the Springboks introduced that world to the deliberate (as opposed to emergency) selection of seven forwards on the bench. Indeed, they won a World Cup final with it. Here they roll out the tactic once more, Grant Williams the one back on the bench, one of those lightning scrum-half-cum-winger types.
The world protested long and hard about a seven-one split last year, citing this as the sort of antic that gives rugby – and the Springboks – a bad name. Erasmus, in peddling the conceit again, tells the world back that he does not care. He just wants to be loved.
How Gregor Townsend would love to have to appeal for love. His Scotland team have long been up there with their opponents last weekend, Fiji, as top candidates for the less coveted title of everyone’s second favourite team. Sometimes they play as if winning people’s hearts is of more concern than winning the match in question. Certainly, they have on occasion contrived to lose in the most heartbreaking manner imaginable.
Townsend will know his work is complete when his side have become less popular, which is best achieved by winning matches – and competitions – with serial regularity. Glasgow have gone some way to achieving this, currently champions of the United Rugby Championship, a status they acquired by winning in South Africa, no less, in the lair of the Bulls.
Seven Glasgow players will start – against four Bulls – but there any comparison will likely end. Glasgow’s win, as popular as any for the above reasons, was achieved in classic ambush style, finishing fourth in the regular season, before riding a wave of form through the playoffs, right up to the final. South Africa, now so familiar with their Celtic confreres in the URC, will need no alerting to Scotland’s threat.
Tom Jordan is given a first start at full-back by Townsend. Certain waspish comments about Scotland’s array of talents not of this nation born have emanated from the Springbok camp, easily missed amid the appeals for love. Jordan is but the latest, a playmaker from New Zealand who has qualified through residency.
His favoured position is fly-half but Finn Russell returns to the side there from Bath, free to play now the international window is open. Blair Kinghorn, meanwhile, who might have been expected to play at full‑back, returns from Toulouse to line up on the wing, replacing Darcy Graham, scorer of four tries against Fiji, who has failed his head injury assessment.
This will be the second rerun of a World Cup pool match, following Wales-Fiji. South Africa terrorised Scotland then. Ominously, they can field so intimidating a lineup featuring just two players from the starting side that day. Franco Mostert returns from a broken leg to partner Eben Etzebeth in the second row.
In a sport with such an array of player types, Etzebeth, captain for the day, could lay claim to being the best in the world. Antoine Dupont might be a more popular choice, certainly more loved, but in the business of winning rugby matches, none are so well versed as Etzebeth, or this Springboks team of which he is the heart and soul. They can work on the love thing when they have retired.
