SA 14 -10 Scotland

The Boks came back from 10-0 down at half-time to a 14-10 victory over Scotland in a game where South Africa was asleep in the first half.

Nathan Hines scored the Scotland’s first try at Murrayfield for 14 months to before the Springboks hit back with nine points from Ruan Pienaar and a try from Jaque Fourie.

South Africa started the match well pushing for the line from kick-off and were on the five metre line within two minutes before the first of many sloppy penalty’s, for diving over the top of the maul, allowed Scotland to clear their line.

The Boks also suffered a bit of bad luck early on as hooker Bismark du Plessis limped off after just 5 minutes with what looked like a hamstring injury.

Persistent bad discipline from the Springboks gifted Scotland another chance to take the lead in the 27th minute, when JP Pietersen was penalised for coming in from the side.

With Phil Godman back on the field after a blood bin absence, Parks relinquished the kicking duties and it was a case of third time lucky for the Scots as Godman thumped the ball between the posts to give them the lead.

The second half was a much tougher affair for Scotland thank god ,and for the first twenty minutes the boks had seventy five percent ball possession .

Jean De Villiers was denied only by a try-saving tackle from Hugo Southwell within minutes of the re-start and the Scotland defence was called into action again just seconds later when Conrad Jantjes pushed for the line on the right wing.

Jantjes ended up knocking the ball on but South Africa were already playing the advantage and Pienaar finally got his side off the mark in the 47th minute with his second kick of the afternoon.
Pienaar reduced the deficit further 10 minutes later when Hines failed to roll away from a tackle on Pietersen and the signs were beginning to look worrying for Scotland.

Fourie, Bryan Habana's replacement, received the ball from De Villiers on the left wing and had enough pace to dive over the line. Pienaar missed the conversion though to leave South Africa just the one point in front.

Godman missed another kick at the posts moments later and Pienaar extended the Springboks' lead with his third penalty of the afternoon.

Scotland came back near the closing stages of the game to have a couple of good breaks but we managed to close them down.

South Africa won but it was not a great game ,Scotland went from they are going to get a hiding to managing to hold their own against the Boks.

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