Centre Nick De Luca insists a victory over South Africa is not essential for Scotland’s World Cup hopes.
The Scots host the Springboks after losing to New Zealand last Sunday. They need to win, and beat Tonga a week later, to secure a second seed berth for England in three years’ time.
bbc
“There’s no need to win it for the World Cup. We need to win it because collectively we want to win,” De Luca told BBC Scotland. “We think we’re good enough to beat South Africa.”
Saturday’s Test will be the 22nd meeting of South Africa and Scotland since the first in 1906. The Springboks have won 16 and lost five, including the 2010 Murrayfield defeat in torrential rain.
That triumph for Scotland came a week after a stinging defeat to the All Blacks and Edinburgh’s De Luca is eyeing a repeat success.
“We now need to go out there and show everybody we are good enough and it’s going to take an 80-minute performance from all of us,” he said
“If we manage to get top eight for the World Cup seedings that’s great, but in three years’ time the top eight might not be the top eight anymore. We need to go out and concentrate on this game.
“We’re looking for a win to beat this team, not necessarily for the World Cup pools.
“We want to beat everyone that’s put in front of us and if you want to do well in the World Cup you’ll have to beat a top seeded side.
“Obviously it makes it easier if you’re one of the top seeded sides but last World Cup we were up against two better seeds [England and Argentina] and we should have won both those games so if we’re in that situation again we’ll back ourselves and hopefully make it come good.”
De Luca will be joined in the starting XV by Edinburgh team-mate David Denton, who replaces the injured Ross Rennie.
“It’s a great feeling to be back,” explained the Zimbabwe-born number eight. “It was tough for me to take the fact I wasn’t starting [against New Zealand] but I feel I worked hard and played well when I came on.
“South Africa are a really physical team and they play good rugby.
“It will be aggressive and I’m relishing the opportunity to test myself against the best exponents of the style I like to play.
“I’m looking to be physical, aggressive and carry the ball well.”
Don’t write Scotland off entirely.
They were pretty good against NZ.
The Boks were pretty shit [in the first half] against Ireland.
Bokke by 20 PLUS
Most important thing is for it to be a good game to watch – dreamt yesterday that Springboks were leading 9-6 at halftime got a penalty over just as the half time whistle went, but thats where dreams can be frustrating because it stopped there so I don’t know who actually won, actually won??? Hang on the game hasn’t taken place yet
so many people in here, and no one is saying a word
😆 not to talk about our 8 guests from Voldy spying 😆
2 @ grootblousmile:
Thats very confident GBS, don’t know why but I got a feeling that the Boks may surprise Scotland by running with the ball a lot more than the kicking that is expected. A tricky one as it looks like it may be quite wet overnight Friday and first thing Saturday morning but then should be dry by the time the game starts. So although it may be a dry game the pitch could still be wet from the rain before which could make the ball more slippery than one would think in a game without it raining, guess it all depends how well it drains.
4 @ Sharks_forever:
howzit boet? We are too busy putting news articles together for you to read to be commenting much, well at least thats my excuse 
Haai Sharkie
Here’s one from a band I really dig, hope you’ll all like it too, the quality of sound is not the best as its from a live recording (sounds a bit fast out of kilter), but I do like live versions of songs and in that setting it must have been brilliant : Runrig Protect and Survive – Live at Stirling Castle :
And here’s one just for you Sharkie, the KILTED (not dress wearing) pipers. Red Hot Chilli Pipers :
@ Bullscot:
It’s no Big Country but it will do
And here’s a rocking live one from the ‘Pipers’ turn it up load and ignore the distortion:
This from iafrica.com:
Robbie Kempson, a former Springbok prop, has escaped facing ‘assault’ charges in Bermuda – after he was arrested by police over an incident in a match at the World Rugby Classic.
Stefan Terblanche, the CEO of the South Africa Rugby Legends Association, confirmed to this website that the prosecutor had declined to proceed with the case.
According to media reports from Bermuda Kempson ran into the back of 34-year-old American flyhalf Leif Gibson in an off-the-ball incident.
The Americans, through US team manager Tim Kluempers, made a huge song-and-dance of the incident, suggesting that Gibson “may never play again” as a result of the injury – even though he was up and walking around again.
The American player was taken from the field on a stretcher, taken to the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital for treatment and is reportedly still in a neck brace. He has returned home to the US for further treatment.
Kempson was arrested because Gibson and the American team management laid charges after the incident – which occurred around 15 minutes into the match at the National Stadium in Devonshire.
“All charges have been dropped,” Terblanche told this website, adding: “The prosecutor felt there was no case to be made.
“Rugby is a contact sport and injuries occur.
“It is a huge relief to us all,” the Legends boss added.
Terblanche said it is still uncertain if Kempson will be cleared to play in the Final, even though he was not cited or charged by the organisers of the tournament.
South Africa beat Argentina 17-7 in Wednesday’s semifinal, to advance to the Final – where they will meet either the Classic Lions or Australia, who face off in the other semifinal on Thursday.
“We are working on getting him cleared for the Final, as he has been cleared on all charges by the authorities in Bermuda and was not cited,” Terblanche told the website.
South Africa, who beat the US 43-10 in the first round of fixtures in which the incident occurred, include other high profile players like Percy Montgomery, De Wet Barry, Bob Skinstad, AJ Venter, Werner Greeff, Egon Seconds, Kennedy Tsimba, Pieter Muller and Lucas Biljon.
9 @ Stormersboy:
Hi ya Stormersboy how you doing mate? Hope all good your side, good on you for liking Big Country, here’s one just for you then with some nice scenery as a backdrop:
11 @ Stormersboy:
Yeah saw that one Stormersboy not sure what to make of it though as they seem to be saying that if the foul play took place as the game was still ‘live’ rather than when it did when play had stopped temporarily for whatever reason then it may have been a different story, what do you think about it?
Bullscot, I visited Stirling Castle in 2008 and they had a medieval band playing collection of rather weird looking stringed instruments. After about 15 minutes of playing some old ditty without any chord changes in the same key, a Scot turned to me and in hushed tones said, ” I’ll tell ya, I’m a U2 man me self…”
And then everybody wondered why I was laughing so loud…
Another one for you Stormersboy and one of my favourite Big Country songs – recorded way back in 1988 it says in Moscow:
or if you prefer the ‘unplugged’ version from 1993 at the Barrowlands Glasgow must dash cheers for now all:
@ Bullscot:
Very nice. One of my favorite bands!
Hi ya fender, sorry logged out and then saw your comment, that sounds like a funny moment there for you at Stirling Castle, am sure as a musician your ear picked up on it being out of tune very quickly, hoped you enjoyed Stirling Castle anyway. Did you go to William Wallace monument as well when you were over, that is a magnificent place and the views from the top make the looong climb up the steps well worth it. Really must dash now have a good day cheers
@ Bullscot:
i dunno, I know Kempo personally so it’s hard to comment without sounding biased, but as a former front rower (hooker) I’d be inclined to call it a storm in a tea cup. Typical American response.
That being said, Kempo is a “hard man” in the Vinny Jones tradition. These guys aren’t youngsters anymore and some may not be as supple and fit as they once were.
Glad the guy is OK obviously.
@ fender:
The Edge is a rather famous fender man too!
@ Bullscot:
Ah Runrig, excellent band, I assume you have heard their live version of ‘Loch Lomond’ and ‘Rocket To The Moon’? real rockers.
15 @ Bullscot:
Yip that is one of my favourites from Big Country as well.
I also don’t think we must take the Scots for granted. Even with the injuries they have. Doubt Meyer has as we can see he has hardly changed his team from last week. Still think we should win this one easier than how we won over Ireland. Well we should, just have to see.
Ref and AR for this Saturday. Also Refs and AR for our game against England next week.
17 November 2012
Scotland vs South Africa at Murrayfield, Edinburgh
Referee: George Clancy (Ireland)
Assistant referees: John Lacey (Ireland), Christophe Berdos (France)
Television match official: Eric Gauzins (France)
24 November 2012
England vs South Africa at Twickenham, London
Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales)
Assistant referees: Glen Jackson (New Zealand), Peter Fitzgibbon (Ireland)
Television match official: Jim Yuille (Scotland)
20@Peter J – Yes man I really enjoy Runrig, glad to see you know and like them too. By the way which team do you support, are you based here in UK or in SA or somewhere else in the big wide world? I did hear Loch Lomond and Rocket to the Moon live, went to a Runrig concert a few years ago at Scone Palace, they were a brilliant live act!
Bullscot, Hope you read this.
Remember that number 8 I spoke to you about? Well it is Denton that will play on Saturday, had it confused, thought he played against us in 2010, not I saw him playing for Scotland in the 6 Nations. He was educated in PE. Still has a saffa accent. He was interviewed on Boots earlier this year and again last night. Zim born but brought up in the Cape here. Excellent 8 a player to watch tomorrow.
Just reading some of the Scottish Papers. Some good reads out there about the game on Saturday.
Here is a snip from one of the articles:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It may be a different story next weekend, however, as the style and guile of the All Blacks is replaced by the relentless brutality of the Springboks or, as Andy Robinson, Scotland’s head coach, put it immediately after Sunday’s match “route one rugby”.
Few teams in world rugby at any level require less time spent on them in terms of pre-match analysis than the Springboks. It is not that they lack footballing ability, merely that they prefer to batter teams into submission before displaying it.
That describes us well. A sorry read actually about us, but really that is how we play. Springboks > “Route one Rugby”… 😯 good grief is that how the world see how we play? They have it right though, also we prefer to batter teams into submission before displaying some footballing ability? Again they are right. We are boring I know we can win this way, but surely we can play better. Jeez we have played this way forever. Time to change I think, we need to start playing total rugby, similar to the way the Sharks got it right towards the end of Super Rugby. To think of that style to what we play at the Boks is a shame really, we can do it and will have too if we want to compete with the rest of the world. We will beat the Scots this time round, but we may not in future. We gonna lag too far behind if we keep the kick and crashball style gameplan. Need to work on something better next years as we only have a weakened Scottish side coming in June and another two games against a weaker country as well. There is the time to start a new game plan.
Gbs,
We need to do reviews of the games each week. There should be a review of the Bok/Scotland game. Not interested in a review of the other games only ours. We should have it up. Get Sharky or Stormerboy to do it for this week and next. Thanks.
28 @ Puma:
That’ll be YOUR job in future… hehehe
29 @ grootblousmile:
Nah, I’ll be useless at it.
Get Stormerboy to do us a review of the Bok/Scotland game, think he will be good at it, or S_F or Bullscot We all over the show here putting up a posts, because there is no thread specifically for this game. We need to do reviews of our games each week and especially during the S15 next. Let us get it started now with this game tomorrow and Boks game against England next week. Thanks…
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