Scotland boss cites 'very harsh' red card as 'cynical' Springboks return to No.1 with Murrayfield win
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Gregor Townsend believes Scotland were victims of a “very harsh” red card as they pushed double world champions South Africa to the brink at Murrayfield. And he says the Springboks should have received more than just one yellow card for “cynical” infringement during the best period of Scottish pressure.
Cummings was sin binned for a so-called croc roll at the ruck just 11 minutes into an autumn test that saw the South Africans, winners of the last two Rugby World Cups, return to the top of the world rankings with a 32-15 win. Townsend, who also questioned whether referee Christophe Ridley was right to disallow a Ben White try for a Huw Jones knock-on much earlier in the move, was left confused by the initial yellow card – and dumbfounded when it was upgraded to a 20-minute red, meaning the Scots could go back to 15 men after the suspension had been served, but Cummings couldn’t return to the fray.
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Hide Ad“At the time, I thought they’d got the wrong person,” said Townsend. “I thought Rory Darge had more came across his side.
“And then there was another angle where Scott's movement did land on the leg of the player who was jackaling. But there was massive mitigating circumstances.
“Scott was there to clear in contact and the scrum-half popped up as he was clearing contact, which took Scott off his feet and he did land on the jackaling player's leg. But it's such a dynamic game and you're hitting those contacts at huge speed that I thought was a very harsh red.
“I thought it was one of our best performances the last few seasons. A performance like that to go up against the world champions, you've got to match, or you've got to bring your own physicality, match their physicality. You've got to work as hard as you've ever worked - and I felt our players did that.
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Hide Ad“When you consider that we were down a man for 20 minutes and that player being a second row, it takes a huge effort to get through that. And the effort was there in the second half.
“When the game was opening up, we looked at times the fitter team and it looked like we were sharper. So yeah, there's a huge amount of pride. Not just pride, but pleasing aspects of the performance.”
Townsend, who said he was proud of his players for standing up to the “intimidation” of the famous Boks ‘Bomb Squad’ of forward replacements thrown into the game five minutes into the second half, added:” There was some skill execution that we have to improve - but I also felt we had a bit of bad luck. We stole a line out in our 22 and the ball bobbles into their hands and they score seven points when they hadn't had much pressure.
“Then knock-on chalks off the try three phases later. I don't know whether you're supposed to go back more than two phases, but it was a knock on. We can't get around that. But those are moments in a game, seven, 14 points that would have put us in a better position.
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Hide Ad“And I think the question earlier about not scoring tries, yeah, that's a valid one. But also, they were giving away a lot of penalties. Penalties that went to three, six, nine, 12 … plus yellow cards.
“Could have been a second yellow card when Ben White was taken out five metres from the line. So I felt we'd had enough pressure and positions to score more points. So we'll look at how we can improve that.
“But I thought we were going to get a (second) yellow card. It was cynical play five metres from the try line and even if you have already awarded a yellow card before you have to look at the action.”