Scotland’s suffering a warning for Ireland against Springboks

Scotland's Sam Skinner during the captain's run at the Stade de Marseille, Marseille. Photo credit: Mike Egerton/PA Wire.

Lessons from the coalface. Over ten days since Scotland’s World Cup ambitions were thrown off course by a suffocating Springbok performance in Marseille and Gregor Townsend’s lads are still waiting for the chance to get back on the bike.

Their time will come again this Sunday when they bump into Tonga at the Allianz Riviera stadium in Nice but their experience against the world champions has stayed with them and it offers a window into the task awaiting Ireland in Paris.

The Boks were far from perfect. Scotland even had some joy at scrum-time on the cusp of half-time but the sheer physicality and the intensity of the defensive linespeed meant that the Six Nations side hardly had a chance find a rhythm.

Andy Farrell’s team will face much the same at the Stade de France, the selection of seven forwards on the South African bench only highlighting further the nature of the assignment and the need to bring their A-game to the Pool B tie.

“It felt like we were fighting against a heavyweight boxer,” said Scotland back row Sam Skinner. “We were a bit lighter weight and they just stuck their weight on us and put their game plan into action.

“We had a game plan that was extremely strong and we were as well prepared as I have ever seen us for a game but we just couldn't quite get it going.

“We fought extremely hard and, given our time again, we would prepare exactly the same, we would just try to be more accurate. You have to credit South Africa's ability to use their strengths and to force us to not be able to implement ours.”

Now, here’s the kicker. Skinner wasn’t even playing two weekends ago. His observations were made from what should have been the comfort of the stands, but these games need the input of every last man.

There is no room for pouting, no option to check out. Ten of Ireland’s players will find themselves wearing lanyards rather than those off-colour skintight jerseys in Saint-Denis but their importance to the occasion will have been baked in on the training paddock.

“We call ourselves the Mavericks,” said Skinner. “Teams will have their own names. You'll have heard the term Bin Juice thrown around and at Exeter sometimes we would call ourselves the Mixed Veg. 

"Our task before the last game was to fly off the line like South Africa and be as physical as we could in training.”

Which is all very well but, as Scotland’s 18-3 defeat demonstrated, it is one thing to know what is coming and to implement preparations to combat it, and another entirely to actually neutralise that threat come the day.

“I would say you can train for it and we did, but you can't do live contact in training so that's a difference,” Skinner explained. “Once they get through and catch you a couple of times and they slow the breakdown up like they did, that's the challenge.

“We are also playing in these warm conditions where the ball is a bit greasy. You have seen lots of knock-ons in games which is going to suit that style of defence. We did prep for it but everyone has a plan until they are punched in the face.”

As for the Scots themselves, Tonga may still be dangerous despite their heavy opening defeat to Ireland but it is a game Townsend’s side has to win to keep their qualification hopes alive through to the last pool round when they will face the Six Nations champions in the capital.

“We want to stamp our moment on this World Cup and say, ‘we are here’. There was a lot of great confidence, chat and belief going into this World Cup and that is still there,” said Skinner who insist they can still win the whole thing.

“South Africa lost their first game at the last World Cup, New Zealand lost their first one here and nobody is ruling them out, so we're doing every single thing we possibly can to put our best performance in against Tonga.”