The story appears on

Page A15

November 22, 2010

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

HomeSportsRugby

Scots shatter Boks' grand slam dreams

SOUTH Africa's hopes of ending a miserable year with a rare grand slam of the home unions ended in the driving Edinburgh rain as Scotland claimed a memorable 21-17 win at Murrayfield on Saturday.

New Zealand was still on for a grand slam, however, thanks to a 38-18 win over Ireland in Dublin.

In Montpellier, Morgan Parra kicked four penalties as Six Nations grand slam champion France beat Argentina 15-9 in an error-strewn performance.

With England and Australia claiming expected victories over Samoa and Italy, respectively, it was left to the Scots to record the biggest surprise on the third weekend of autumn internationals, after Fiji drew with Wales 16-16 on Friday.

Dan Parks kicked all of Scotland's points, through six penalties and a drop goal, as a team which was crushed 3-49 by New Zealand the previous weekend earned its first win over the Springboks since 2002.

The world champions finished bottom of the Tri-Nations table this year after losing five of their six matches and hadn't convinced during their end-of-year tour of Europe, scraping narrow wins over Ireland and Wales.

But they were still expected to beat Scotland, which had been embarrassed by the All Blacks just seven days ago.

"It's tough. We were probably under pressure," South Africa coach Peter de Villiers said. "Everyone wants us to play more expansive but with the weather the way it was it didn't allow us to."

Replacement flanker Willem Alberts scored a late try for South Africa, adding to Morne Steyn's four penalties, but Scotland held on for a fourth win in its last five tests.



 

Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

娌叕缃戝畨澶 31010602000204鍙

Email this to your friend