Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus was left with mixed emotions after his team kicked off their Autumn Nations Series campaign with a hard-fought 32-15 victory over Scotland at Murrayfield on Saturday.
Although the world champions ran in four unanswered tries, Gregor Townsend’s troops were competitive for long periods and despite the Springboks eventually prevailed with a 17-point winning margin, the match was still in the balance on the hour-mark with the visitors holding a slender 19-15 lead.
It was thanks to two penalties from Handre Pollard and a converted Jasper Wiese try in the final quarter that South Africa managed to shake off their opponents but both Erasmus and Boks skipper Eben Etzebeth felt the scoreboard flattered the visitors.
Happy not to concede a try
“The scoreboard doesn’t tell the whole story, but we can be proud of the fact that we didn’t concede a try in the last two matches we played against them,” said Erasmus.
“We had to work hard to beat them, so in general we are not pleased with our performance today.”
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Elaborating on his statement, Erasmus said: “I was happy about the effort the team showed and winning by 17 points away from home, but we need to work on trying to sync better on the field and handle things better if in case we get injuries.”
Etzebeth echoed his coach’s sentiments but said he was not surprised by Scotland’s performance on their home turf.