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Rory Darge on why the Boks aren't quite as scary as they once were

By PA
Rory Darge of Scotland clashes with Damian de Allende of South Africa during the Rugby World Cup France 2023 match between South Africa and Scotland at Stade Velodrome on September 10, 2023 in Marseille, France. (Photo by Michael Steele - World Rugby/World Rugby via Getty Images)

Rory Darge believes Glasgow’s United Rugby Championship success last season can have a positive effect on Scotland’s mindset as they bid to topple world champions South Africa at Murrayfield on Sunday.

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The back-rower was one of several members of Gregor Townsend’s squad who played for Warriors when they pulled off their historic URC final triumph over the Bulls in Pretoria in June.

Scotland full-back Blair Kinghorn also enjoyed notable success last term as part of the Toulouse squad that won a Top 14 and Champions Cup double.

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Darge believes that, in addition to having faced the Springboks at the World Cup 14 months ago, such lofty accomplishments at club level have given the Scotland players a renewed sense of confidence for facing formidable challenges like the one coming their way on Sunday.

“It is a good thing that we’ve had the experience of playing South Africa,” said the 24-year-old.

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“A lot of the group have had the experience of playing them now, so I have a bit of a better idea of what’s coming.

“The other thing that helps is the sort of form that the players in this group have been in away from here. The results they’ve got and obviously the club’s successes and the form that we’ve been in with Scotland as well means that we’ll go into it with a bit of belief.

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“It gives you a bit of belief that you can go out and win those big games (at club level). It’s not just Glasgow, obviously Blair coming out with experience of winning the double, and others. That definitely has an impact.”

Darge is relishing the chance to face South Africa although he is mindful of the fact they restricted the Scots to their lowest-scoring outing of the past five years in an 18-3 triumph in Marseille in September 2023.

“You’re always excited to play for Scotland and nerves come into it a little bit, but it’s mainly excitement,” said Darge, looking towards Sunday’s match.

“It’s an opportunity to play the two-time world champions. Everyone came in on Monday just excited to get into it.

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Ulster <a href=
Glasgow Warriors” width=”1911″ height=”1080″ class=”size-full wp-image-385241″ /> September 2024; Jude Postlethwaite of Ulster is tackled by Tom Jordan, left, and Rory Darge of Glasgow Warriors during the United Rugby Championship match between Ulster and Glasgow Warriors at The Kingspan Stadium in Belfast. (Photo By Ben McShane/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

“It was obviously a really tough game 14 months ago. The way they play against you puts you under a lot of pressure, and tests your skills.

“I think we learnt a lot from that game, we’ll refer to it a little bit this week but both us and them have played a lot of rugby since then, so we’ll not spend too much time on it.”

Darge was co-captain of Scotland along with Finn Russell for this year’s Six Nations but the back-rower has now reverted to being a vice-captain after his Glasgow team-mate Sione Tuipulotu was promoted to the role of skipper last month.

“It’s been grand,” he said of the leadership change.

“Me and Sione are obviously good mates, played a lot of rugby together over the last few years and I think he’ll do a really good job.

“He’s always been one of the main leaders in our team. Anything that I can do to support him, I’ll do.”

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Comments

5 Comments
H
Hellhound 1 hr ago

Sounds more like trying to convince himself that Saturday won't be a slaughterhouse. Good luck to them. I hope they give the Boks a bit of a challenge or else the Boks will get complacent. I give it to the Boks with a winning margin of 15 - 20 points

J
Jacque 2 hours ago

Good Luck on Sunday, Rory👌

R
RugbyFan 2 hours ago

Yeah the Boks are not that scary to play. If Glasgow can almost beat a Sharks team full of Boks. The Boks are a known quantity now.

B
Bull Shark 2 hours ago

The boks have been a known quantity to Scotland for 118 years. And have still only managed just 5 wins. 2 wins in 30 years, the professional era.


The boks certainly wont be complacent - but a victory for Scotland is very wishful thinking.

J
Jacque 2 hours ago

🦧

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Tom 3 hours ago
Borthwick, it's time to own up – Andy Goode

The problem for me isn't the pragmatic playstyle, it's that there is no attacking gameplan whatsoever.


I've got no issue with a methodical, kick heavy, defense centric gameplan. That playstyle won England our only world cup and it's won SA 4 of them. However! You can play in a pragmatic manner but you have to still play heads-up rugby and have the ability to turn it on when you manufacture prime attacking situations. England work very hard to get in the right areas of the pitch and have no idea how to convert when they get there, hence we tried and missed 3 drop goals as we were completely impotent in the 22. I've not seen any improvement in our attack in the last 4-5 years. The only time we got close to the tryline was from an interception, it's embarrassing. I don't know what Richard Wigglesworth is getting paid for.


I agree that England should have found a way to close out that game. Being able to grind out tough games is critical but I'd argue that being unable to string more than a couple of passes together without dropping it and finding a way to get over the gainline is even more important... But frustratingly, they don't seem interested. All you hear is about how close we are to bring a great team, we just need to execute a bit better. I don't see it. I see a team who are very physical, very pragmatic who do some stuff really well and are useless with the ball in hand which adds up to a very average side. They need to stop focusing on getting 5% better at the stuff we're already at an 8/10 level and focus on getting a lot better at the stuff we're doing at a 2/10 level. We have the worst attack of pretty much any side in the world... Argentina, Scotland, Fiji are way more threatening.

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