Ireland’s clinical thumping of Scotland in the deciding game last week provided a good indicator of why the World Cup champion Springboks finished second to the No 1 ranked team rather than top of Pool B.
We will know on Sunday of course whether it really matters, and it could be that by finishing top, Ireland have secured themselves a poisoned chalice.
The Irish will end up feeling that way if New Zealand, who aren’t as strong at this World Cup as they’ve been at previous editions of rugby’s global showpiece event, produce the one class 80-minute performance in Saturday’s quarterfinal in Paris that they are capable of.
Given how the teams went in Pool A though, and France’s excellent record going into the tournament, with it only really being Ireland that has boasted better form over the past 18 months, you’d imagine the South Africans would have preferred to finish top so they could avoid the hosts.
Being hosts does give France an advantage, and much of the talk in the buildup to Sunday’s big showstopper at Stade de France will be about France’s 16th man, the crowd, and the potential for the voluble home support to create a 17th man in the form of the referee.
England made a mess of the theory that home ground counts much by not even making the playoffs when they hosted in 2015, but generally in World Cup playoff games, as in playoff games in other rugby competitions, the hosts tend to come through.
Not that the Boks seemed particularly concerned by their narrow defeat in the Pool decider in Paris two and a half weeks ago, and both quarterfinals are close to 50/50 games.
But it would be surprising if they back themselves more against the hosts than they would against an All Black team they thumped by a record score in their final pre-tournament warmup fixture.
CLINICAL IS THE KEY WORD AND MISSING INGREDIENT
So where did it go wrong? The secret to the Irish small margin of superiority in the Pool phase lies in one word of this story’s opening paragraph: clinical.
You could also add the word efficiency. Ireland weren’t more dominant against Scotland in Paris a few days ago than the Boks were when they played the same opponent in an opening game in Marseille a month ago that was bathed in potential for peril.
While the Irish started quickly by scoring a good try to James Lowe after just 63 seconds, Scotland actually had quite a bit of the game for the rest of the first half if you look at the match stats.
Ireland had to make a significant number more tackles than Scotland did, not just in the first half but across the entire game.
Scotland had more ball for much of the game, but Ireland used it more efficiently, and where the word clinical comes in is that, with the exception of a knock-on from Mack Hansen halfway through the first half when he had the line at his mercy, Ireland did score with virtually every opportunity they created for themselves.
SCOTTISH GAME A TRIUMPH BUT ALSO CONTINUATION OF NEGATIVE TREND
The Bok coaches will probably agree that they should have won by more than 15 points against Scotland.
It wasn’t just the goal kicks that were missed, it was also the error rate in the opposing 22 that let the South Africans down.
They didn’t need to beat Scotland by a big score, they just needed to win the game, but the way they made heavy weather of their attempts to convert their forward dominance was the continuation of what has been a trend for quite a while now.
And it was a harbinger of what was to come in an outstanding game that had everyone captivated when they played Ireland. There were South African supporters who afterwards described Ireland as lucky.
Yet while it may have been true that the Boks had their chances to win, you can’t really be considered lucky because your opponents struggle to execute the basis, give penalties away and miss kicks at the posts.
Ireland were just super efficient, as they were against Scotland, and the Boks weren’t.
Apart from the one defeat to Ireland, the big downer for the Boks in the Pool phase was what came a week before that Ireland game - the loss of Malcolm Marx to injury.
The Boks suffered for the first choice hooker’s absence not because of what Marx contributes in his primary role but because of his influence in the battle for the ball on the ground. The breakdown was where Ireland effectively won the game.
Duane Vermeulen was left out for the Ireland game but reintroduced, albeit in a different position to his usual No 8 on the flank, in the final Pool game against Tonga and should be in the frame to be selected for Sunday night for his ability to do what Marx does.
TONGA’S DETERMINATION ENSURED A GOOD HIT OUT

Talking of the Tonga game, it was a match that the South Africans should have profited from given the three-week break between the Irish clash and Sunday’s semifinal.
Tonga chose the moment to produce their best game of the tournament and provided Siya Kolisi’s team with the tough hit out they needed two weeks out from the nervously fraught play-off stage.
There are some fans who love it when their teams run riot against minor opposition, like the Boks did in their second Pool match against Romania.
The reality is you get very little out of games against weak opposition where defensive systems aren’t remotely on the same level as you will encounter against the top sides.
If you ask me who the Boks played in the Pool games at the last World Cup in Japan outside of New Zealand and Italy, and what the scores were, I’d have to think twice.
I had to search for the score from the Romanian game. What it did do was give a practice opportunity and someone like Grant Williams, normally a scrumhalf, the chance to excel at wing, but the pressure against a minnow nation is so much less so what you get out of it is therefore debatable.
But the Tonga match, although the opponents were still decidedly second tier, was meaningful because of the “final footing” attitude of their opponents, perhaps even more so because it had to be won for the champions to avoid the ignominy of a group phase exit.
IT WAS KNOCK-OUT RUGBY FROM THE START
Not that the Tonga game was really the dry run for the knockouts this time that the Italy game in Shizouka was four years ago.
That came much earlier, in the opening game in fact. With Ireland always looming as tough opponents, losing to Scotland in Marseille would have been a disaster.
That was something the coaches warned the players about a long time before the tournament, and because they got through with a comfortable win, thus almost assuring their passage to the knockouts regardless of the Irish result, it did take a lot of the pressure off.
The alarmists who feared a massive Scotland win over Ireland, which would have put the Bok passage to the quarterfinal in jeopardy, were always living in Cloud Cuckooland.
Ultimately then the second place finish in the so-called Pool of Death isn’t something for the Boks to be too dissatisfied with.
After all, they finished second in Japan in 2019 and ended up winning the Webb Ellis trophy… They know the real World Cup starts now.
SPRINGBOK RESULTS IN IN POOL B (ended second behind Ireland)
SA 18 Scotland 3
SA 76 Romania 0
Ireland 13 SA 8
SA 49 Tonga 18