Scotland forward David Denton today looked ahead to the next round of the EMC Autumn Test rugby series and insisted it is a case of “bring on the Boks”.
Undeterred by the fact that Scotland opened their programme with a 51-22 home defeat by New Zealand, the 22-year-old Edinburgh back rower insisted a bucketload of rust has come out of the team’s system.
scotsman
Also, Denton believes that Scotland are more suited to the route-one bludgeoning style associated with South Africa than the fingertip touches employed by New Zealand in stretching opponents to their limits. If anybody should know it is Denton, who was brought up in Zimbabwe and had regular contact with South African sides before moving to Scotland and making himself eligible to wear the thistle through ancestry.
Capped seven times, including a first half shift as a substitute on Sunday for the unfortunate Ross Rennie, who is out for the duration of the Autumn programme with shoulder damage, Denton said: “Facing the All Blacks could have been more physical and it was more the tempo they played at which was the tough thing.
“The physical challenge is coming on Saturday.”
However, he maintained: “These Boks are a side we can definitely play well against. Their tempo is a lot slower and they are a lot more physical but we can definitely handle that.
“Whenever New Zealandwanted to attack they had quick ball and we made it easy for them by missing first-up tackles. You can’t win matches if you don’t make your tackles and that is where we came unstuck. We have to get our defence sorted because we can’t let a team score as many tries as New Zealand scored against us (six). You’ll never win games like that.
“We need to work on our systems in defence. We were sitting off a bit too much. If we do come up with a bit more pressure in offence we are going to be in a very good place. We were rusty in defence and there were a few times in attack when we looked like a team that hadn’t been together for a while. On other occasions, though, particularly towards the end of the first half, we looked like a very, very dangerous team. Defence is a big negative for us but we scored three tries and three tries should be enough to win you a game.
“The great positive I take is that we had a powerful maul I haven’t seen in Scottish rugby for a long time.
“We knew we had to take them physically and we did that well.”
In many ways this is a more important challenge as Scotland have beaten South Africa twice in recent years and have no hang-ups associated with the All Blacks fixture where they have drawn a blank in each of 29 meetings apart from two draws. “A lot of our optimism does stem from having beaten South Africa as recently as 2010, but there is more to it than that,” says Denton. “They are a team our style of rugby suits playing against.”
There is also the massive incentive for Scotland of trying to improve their world ranking so as to reach the top eight and avoid being in a pool with two big guns when the draw for the 2015 tournament is made on December 3.
“This is massive in terms of world cup qualification and we need to get ourselves as high up the rankings as possible to ensure we get a good pool in the World Cup.”
29 @ Sharks_forever:
He was so impressive against Wales. Where does he play his rugby? Probably in France. I personally think it would be good for the Arg players to play SR the only way is to have them dotted around some of the SR teams. Though it never bothered them too much this year, they were very good for the first time in the RC.
Hope we call it 4 nations in future or sh 4 nations. Have to agree with everyone, that name is just stupid… 🙄
7 @ Stormersboy:
Re your comment to sharky
30 @ Puma:
Juandré Kruger offers nothing?
What are you smoking, old timer? Pappegaaislaai? Durban Poison? Handeklap Twakkies?
Come on, he is twice the lock than any of the locks of the Sharks, Cheetahs, Lions… and he is way better than Andries Langbek.
Juandré did his thing last Saturday, took all his ball, carried up strong, did the hard yards, defended well enough.
Times have changed, some years ago, the only discussion on this game would have been by how many points we would beat the Scots, so either the Scots have got a lot better, or the Boks have slipped. I think a bit of both, yes the ABs beat them by 29 points, but there can be no dispute the ABs are the best in the world right now. As for their 10 changes, they have so much depth that it doesnt make that much difference, if Carter doesnt play, Cruden does and so forth for most of the positions.
I think the Boks will win, but I doubt it will be by anywhere near 29 points. Hope I’m wrong, and they win by 30 or more but I just dont see it happening.
34 @ Peter J:
I will be unhappy if the Bokke don’t beat the Scots by at least 15!
This would be my starting and bench backline for Scotland :
9 Mike Blair
10 Peter Horne
11 Tim Visser (if fit)
12 Matt Scott
13 Nic Da Luca
14 Max Evans
15 Stuart Hogg
Subs Greig Laidlaw, Henry Pyrgos, Sean Lamont
The big question is about flyhalf and centres, I wasn’t initially happy with the choice of centres for All Blacks game would have preferred to see Dunbar get his chance but Robinson went for the Edinburgh Combination and while I think they struggled in defence they didn’t do too bad otherwise, also one of the things over the years I criticize Robinson for is chopping and changing his centre pairing so struggles to get continuity so it would hardly be right for me to suggest it change for this test.
Horne is probably one that won’t happen as he is a centre, but at Glasgow he has been doing the kicking for posts so is able to do that and also being more physical than Laidlaw may work better against the Boks. For me Jackson has been off form this year, Laidlaw actually does tackle quite well for someone his size and kicks and distributes well so much so that I predicted and thought after that he would be/was man of Scotland’s southern hemisphere tour, but for some reason he just hasn’t reached those heights this season. Also if Horne at flyhalf doesn’t work then you have the insurance of Laidlaw to come off the bench. Evans is a really nippy player on the wing and I just prefer him to Lamont there, already have the big Visser on the other wing so don’t necessarily need big player like Lamont on other one, then you also have Lamont’s versatility you can call on from the bench to cover centre and wing and at a push fullback. Blair and Visser and Hogg pick themselves as the best in the squad, but would be nice to see Pyrgos get a longer run in 2nd half.
11 @ Sharks_forever:
Think that will be the team. Cilliers will be on the bench though unless Jannie can’t start because of the ankle.
33 @ grootblousmile:
He was JUST okay gbs. I watched the game again yesterday, he was just so so. Flip would be better, but he plays at 4 lock. Pity Eben could not do the calls. Eben and Flip would be far better. Eben and Bakkies would be brilliant. Bakkies has still another 3 years in him. Should be playing with the Boks, like it is not that he will be too old come wc, he will be just fine. Somehow think PSDT will be part of the Boks next year. Meyer was impressed with him this year, then he picked up a ankle injury he had to have a op on. So probably why he never got a call for the eoyt. Sharks to played him in the u21’s. Crazy should have had him in the CC and especially the final, would have helped our lineout for sure. Sharks too must not play him at flank next year and only lock.
34 @ Peter J:
Good post and agree with you. Years back the only discussion would have been by how many points we will beat them by, now it is can we win? It is that they have got better, but so should we have, we have gone backwards the last couple of years.
We will beat them, just not sure by how much and we may just sneak a win, but with them having some out with injury I think it should be by 10 points, if not then we are really not anywhere we should be right now.
Front Row Grunt@FrontRowGrunt
Bok side: Zane, JP, JdJ, JdV, Hougaard, Lambie, Pienaar, Duane, Alberts, Louw, Kruger, Eben, Jannie, Strauss, Gurthro.
Bok bench: Brits, Heinke, Cilliers, Flip, Coetzee, Steyn, Taute, Mvovo
I think more or less as expected, glad to see JdJ in the side, but would have liked to see Taute at fb instead of Zane.
@ grootblousmile:
Is that going to be your Bru prediction?
34 @ Peter J:
Hi Peter J yes think you are right that it is a bit of both ie Boks slipping a bit and smaller nations improving, I don’t think folk (many Bok supporters) rate the improvement of teams like Ireland Scotland and Wales (ok they slipped back a bit lately) high enough and I think a big part in this improvement is the fact that they have been getting high quality southern hemisphere players joining them in their local competitions so improving the quality of the competetions and also aiding in the development of their players off the pitch in training etc.
Here is the team i posted earlier, exactly the same bar 1 positionI had Cilliers on the bench, Hm has gone for CJ as a damn TH cover?? WHY OH WHY, CJ is seriously over rated. rest of the team was pretty much expected
15 Kirchner/Taute
14 JPP
13 JDJ
12 JDV
11 Hougaard
10 Lambie
09 Pienaar
08 Vermeulen
07 Alberts
06 Flouw ( I was never a fan but must admit, he is very very good right now)
05 Jandre (He needs to step up)
04 Etzebeth
03 Jannie/Cilliers
02 Strauss
01 Gurthro
16 Brits
17 Cilliers/Malherbe
18 Heinke
19 Flip
20 Marcell
21 Jantjes
22 Taute/KIrchner
23 Mvovo/Rhule
So even I am finding HM easy to read, and oh hell the online maniacs gonna go crazy of Jantjes and Chili not being selected 😆
@ Bullscot:
Very good point you make. I hope that this would also aid the Pacific Island nations – they suffer from losing too many players to NZ and Oz. If more of their youngsters played in Europe and then for their country of birth, think it could help those 3 rise in power a bit.
@ Sharks_forever: Tank had that wrong, like i posted it is CJ on the bench and not Cilliers, must say that is a shock, Cilliers was excellent when he came on last weekend
34 @ Peter J:
Yip All Blacks playing that way would have beat most teams by far but they were allowed to play like that because we (Scotland) gave them so much room to do so for that period in the 1st half and also didn’t make many of our first time tackles. One felt the ABs could shift up a gear and turn it on at any time they chose to, BUT remember we scored a try that the try scorer after the time has said he felt was a try buy couldn’t be given because their were too many bodies in TMO way, also I think ABs scored first try after a skew throw in at lineout in a move that also cost us our fetcher Rennie so from there it was even harder to compete against Mc Caw and slow their ball down. So never going to suggest we could in our wildest dreams have beaten the All Blacks but it could have been closer than the 29 points loss.
# 19 @ Puma,
The Cheetahs will have the best SA fetchers in their ranks. Brüssow and Marnus Schoeman. Then we can have Lappies or Downey at 7, and Phillip vd Walt or Karemaker at 8.
In fact the Cheetahs pack looks pretty good. Agree if Beast or Jannie happen to go down, the Sharks are in a spot of bother. Dell, and van Dyk have impressed at the Junior WC, but Super Rugby is a different Beast excuse the pun!
@ Bullscot:
Hi Bullscot, I think maybe its a hangover from the past, I know I (quite wrongly at times) subconsciously sort of write off especially Scotland Italy and to some extent Argentina. Maybe we dont give credit where credit is due, we say ‘well, the Boks or ABs must have played really badly if they could only win by X points’ but maybe we should recognize that these ‘minnows’ of the past are no longer such minnows, as you say the influx of Southern Hemisphere players into their club sides has taken away the old fear of the SH teams, they play with and against SH guys every week, and have learned from them.
@ Cheetah4eva:
At TH we are fine with Herbst, he does not get dominated C4E, it’s at LH where i see a problem
Rudi you doing a Bok team announcement article?? or should i do one???
OK I have put up a bok team announcement thread for those keen to join
Ok team, Zane still in, would liked to have seen him give way to Taute, but the rest are OK, no big surprises there.
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