The policy of blooding younger players means that Scotland can make major changes and still be strong enough to face down No 2-ranked South Africa, key man Greig Laidlaw believes.
The Edinburgh scrum-half takes over the captaincy of a much-altered Scotland side for Sunday’s second viagogo Autumn Test from the one that defeated Japan last week, but whatever his club coach Alan Solomons might say, he thinks the depth is there to do so.
The Edinburgh head coach told the South African press that there wasn’t much strength in depth in Scottish rugby and that the Springboks could rest key players for this match, as Heyneke Meyer has done leaving Bismarck du Plessis, Eben Etzebeth and Morne Steyn on the bench.
However, Laidlaw thinks the work done over the past year has allowed Scotland’s player base and experience to widen to allow them to make alterations in stark contrast to where they were when they last met the Boks at Murrayfield, almost exactly a year ago.
“I think we’ve progressed well on the year,” said Laidlaw. “Scott (Johnson) hasn’t hidden away from the fact that he wanted to blood new players on the summer tour and he did that.
“I think you’re starting to see the benefit of that with the changes made from last weekend, because I don’t think we’ve weakened the team. We’re getting a competitive squad now that’s what Scott wanted at the start and that’s what we’re hoping to prove this weekend.”
Further evidence of the change in attitude for the squad came in the Japan game, he agreed, especially if it’s compared to the loss against Tonga a year ago.
“There’s definitely a feeling from the Japan game last week that wasn’t there when we played Tonga,” he continued.
“Even when the score got close against Japan, we stayed tight in our systems, did the small things well and we just pulled away.
“There’s a strong belief in the squad now. It’s a huge test this weekend but there’s a real belief that we’re very well coached, training is really good at the minute, and just that on its own has given everyone added confidence.”
The meeting of the two sides in Nelspruit in the summer has some relevance, Laidlaw believes, but there’s no hold over of revenge for a game the Scots felt they could have won.
“It’s a different game but it would be silly to forget it entirely,” he said. “We did a lot of good things in that game and I think if we do a lot of the same we’ll be in the best possible position.
“It was a game I enjoyed playing in for 70 minutes and we just slipped off in the last 10 minutes and allowed them to grab a try near the end that took the scoreboard away from us.
“We went down to 14 men which didn’t help us as South Africa are hard enough to play with 15.”
Scotland excelled at the breakdown against the Boks in Nelspruit an area that had been a major problem through the Six Nations and John Barclay’s inclusion this week should make the Scots even more efficient in that key area.
South Africa have countered by employing the former Scotland A lock Richie Gray to help with their breakdown work, but Laidlaw believes they were pretty handy there to start with.
“You look at their record, they haven’t lost many games this year so they’re doing something right,” he said.
“For us, we know that our part has to be right, we have to be to the breakdown first and not let them get there, because they’ve got some strong boys over the ball who are tough to shift.”