Gregor Townsend had just watched his Scotland side push the world's top-ranked team to the brink at Loftus Versfeld, yet the coach was in no mood to argue with the rankings. Asked directly whether South Africa deserve their No.1 status after a 42-28 win that was far tighter than the scoreline suggests, Townsend did not hesitate.
"Yes. They showed it again today. They've obviously got huge strength and depth," Townsend said.
He pointed to the Springboks' knack for winning from difficult positions. "They won a number of games in November when they were down to 14 men, and they found a way to win today."
Scotland, on their first visit to South Africa since 2013, had every right to feel they belonged. Trailing 14-0 early, Rassie Erasmus's much-changed side clawed back to level by half-time before the Boks pulled clear with three tries in quick succession around the hour mark. Papier, Roos, Elrigh Louw, Damian Willemse and Zach Porthen all crossed, before Jesse Kriel sealed it in the 77th minute for a tenth consecutive Test victory. Scotland still claimed a four-try bonus point through Matt Fagerson, Kyle Rowe, Josh Bayliss and Ben White.
Townsend's one regret was timing. "Perhaps we could have got the bench on earlier — easy in hindsight, but they certainly made a big, big impact when they came on," he said. Scotland's failure to capitalise on a second-half sin-bin for Ben-Jason Dixon proved the game's hinge.
What made the result notable was who delivered it. Erasmus fielded 12 players with fewer than 10 caps, using the fixture as a live audition rather than a full-strength statement. The coach was candid about what he learned.
"Now we know that a lot of guys need a lot of work to stay in the squad; some guys made it," Erasmus said.
He defended the gamble of experimenting against quality rather than the softer Georgia fixture to come. "We could wait until we play Georgia and then a guy does pretty well but you're not sure that the intensity is the same as a team that beat England, France and Argentina," he said.
One experiment in particular paid off. Handre Pollard, the Boks' World Cup-winning fly-half, started at inside centre. "We have been training with Handre at 12 for the last four weeks so we got an answer there as well — that's what we were trying to do," Erasmus explained. He framed the whole exercise as a continuation of a long habit: "There was a stage since 2018 when we were losing, when we were learning who can do it."
Not everyone was ready to hand South Africa the argument on the strength of one performance. RugbyPass's match report noted that "the score does not fairly describe this contest," crediting Scotland's sustained pressure and second-half revival.
The Springboks now turn to Wales, with Erasmus hinting he will name a considerably stronger side. On this evidence, the depth he is building may be the most persuasive case for their ranking — even when the first-choice XV is nowhere to be seen.
