Springboks' salvage mission

Scotland v South Africa: Edinburgh was bathed in sunshine yesterday but today's forecast is for heavy rain. It is bad news for a Springbok team that has become becalmed.

South Africa can expect a storm at home should they lose to the Scots at Murrayfield this afternoon or stumble on next week's trip to Argentina.

While only the most optimistic of Scottish supporters would predict a home win, South Africa's bombastic claims that they could march to a grand slam against the home nations have been made a mockery of by their defeats in Dublin and London.

Jon Smit, their captain, had a ready-made reason for two displays that have left the Springboks feeling under the weather.

He said: "A lot of people don't appreciate what a difference the weather makes. Even though the conditions were not too difficult they were bad enough, particularly against England, to really slow us down. It's vital that we win the two remaining games and save the tour from being a complete disaster."

South Africa's coach Jake White has been forced to make seven changes to the team who gave such a passionless display at Twickenham. Bryan Habana, scorer of the late try last week, makes a first start on the wing and White gives first caps to the prop Gurthro Steenkamp and the flanker Solly Tyibilika.

White's counterpart Matt Williams has few reasons to see the sunny side. Scotland have played with spirit in two defeats by Australia and have run in a century of points against Japan but, should they lose today, it would be their 10th defeat in 12 under Williams.

The only other win was against Samoa and, although the Scottish rugby public is more polite than the country's football public and unlikely to give Williams the Berti Vogts treatment just yet, there are many followers north of the border who are not warming to the Australian.

Williams has brought back Sale flanker Jason White to beef up his back row and Stuart Grimes returns at lock after recovering from a virus, but Scotland's real problem is behind the scrum. The fireworks at Murrayfield are often spectacular but Scotland's fans badly need some sparks from their back line.

There is still little chance of Scotland repeating their 21-6 win over the Springboks two autumns ago.

SCOTLAND: H Southwell (Edinburgh Rugby); C Paterson (Edinburgh Rugby), B Hinshelwood (Worcester), A Henderson (Glasgow Rugby), S Lamont (Glasgow Rugby); D Parks (Glasgow Rugby), C Cusiter (The Borders); A Jacobsen (Edinburgh Rugby), G Bulloch (Glasgow Rugby), G Kerr (Leeds Tykes), S Grimes (Newcastle Falcons), N Hines (Edinburgh Rugby), J White (Sale Sharks), A Hogg (Edinburgh Rugby), D Macfadyen (Glasgow Rugby). Replacements: R Russell (London Irish), B Douglas (The Borders), S MacLeod (The Borders), J Petrie (Glasgow Rugby), M Blair (Edinburgh Rugby), G Ross (Leeds Tykes), G Morrison (Glasgow Rugby).

SOUTH AFRICA: P Montgomery; J Fourie, M Joubert, W Julies, B Habana; J van der Westhuyzen, F du Preez; G Steenkamp, J Smit (capt),CJ can der Linde, B Botha, V Matfield, S Tyibilika, D Rossouw, J van Niekerk. Reserves: D Coetzee, O du Randt, G Britz, J Cronje, M Claassens, G Bobo, G du Toit.