Fraser Brown: Scotland immersed in rugby-mad culture at WXV 2 and why tackle on Adam Hastings deserves long ban

Helen Nelson on the attack for Scotland during the win over Italy in WXV2 in Cape Town. (Photo: Getty Images)

South Africa is a rugby mad country and there was a lot of going on over the weekend.

I’m here as part of the Scotland Women coaching team and on the same day as we were playing Italy in our opening match of WXV 2, the Springboks were beating Argentina in Nelspruit to clinch the Rugby Championship.

The URC is taking place as well - Edinburgh were playing the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld - so it’s a really saturated market. When you turn on the sports channels it’s wall to wall rugby. We had the Currie Cup final the week before, too.

South Africa's captain Siya Kolisi lifts the trophy as he celebrates with his teammates after the Springboks won the Rugby Championship by beating Argentina at Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit. (Photo by PHILL MAGAKOE/AFP via Getty Images)

We’re sharing a hotel in Cape Town with the South African women’s squad so when the Springboks beat the Pumas to seal the Rugby Championship on Saturday it got very noisy!

It was really nice to see, actually, because all the staff in the hotel were totally immersed in the rugby and it feels like the whole country is behind the team. You go into the lift the next day and all the chat is about the rugby.

There is a huge amount of national pride in the fact that the Springboks are world champions. Success breeds success and the men’s team here are in the midst of a golden period which encompasses back-to-back World Cups, a series victory over the British and Irish Lions and now the Rugby Championship.

The thing that will boost support for the women’s game in South Africa is success for their national side and its profile is definitely growing. Before the weekend, they named the men’s and women’s teams in a joint announcement and there were good luck messages for the women’s team from some of their World Cup heroes, Cheslin Kolbe, Ox Nche and Siya Kolisi. So the support internally is there and they are definitely trying to foster that Springboks mentality in the women’s team.

And like all sport, the more successful the team is, the bigger the support will grow. We’ve seen that in Scotland with the increase in crowd numbers over the last year and a half as the national side have put together a run which has seen them win 11 of their last 14 Test matches. More success leads to more attention and South Africa’s win over Japan in their opening match of WXV 2 should lead to plenty of interest in their game this weekend. They’re taking on Australia right after our game against Japan as part of a double-header at the Athlone Stadium in Cape Town, a game we’ll watch with interest as we take on Australia seven days later.

As I said last week, Scotland are here in Cape Town with the aim of winning WXV 2 again. We beat Italy 19-0 in our opening game, it’s Japan next before finishing the tournament against the Aussies. We were wasteful at times against the Italians, especially in the first half, and the margin at half-time could and should have been bigger, but we can’t be disappointed winning against a team we’ve historically struggled to beat. It was the first time that Scotland had not conceded a point in a match since 2006.

But we did leave two or three opportunities out there in the opening half hour. The conditions were difficult in the second half because it was very wet but what was pleasing was how we coped in those conditions. We kicked well, managed the game in the right areas, and defended extremely well.

It was a decent performance to start the tournament but there’s plenty to improve on and I think that’s a healthy place to be. We will need to be more clinical to win our final two games.

The weather here fluctuates quite wildly. Tuesday was cold, about 12 degrees, but by Wednesday it was 21 and it is expected to be 34 for our game at the weekend which will present new challenges for both teams.

It’s also warm up in Johannesburg where Edinburgh are based this week. They will have to cope with not just the heat but the altitude too. Although Johannesburg is closer to sea level than Pretoria where Edinburgh suffered their second defeat of the season last weekend, it will still be extremely challenging conditions. This Saturday, they’ve got Lions who’ve just had a good win over Ulster. We were speaking to some of the Ulster boys who have been training at Cape Town ahead of their game with the Bulls this weekend as well as Jonny Bell, who used to be the attack coach at Glasgow and is now defence coach with Ulster, and he was saying what a good team the Lions were.

So it could be a difficult test for Edinburgh who have been given a really tough start to the season. And it’s not going to get any easier when they return home because they’ve got the Stormers at Hive Stadium in round four.

The worry for Edinburgh is that they started last season pretty well then tailed off towards the end. This time around the concern would be around generating momentum in the first block of fixtures because it won’t be long until the URC breaks off for the autumn internationals and you don’t want to be going into the Test window break with only one win from six. That could be a tough place to be, especially when you’ve got Europe coming up and then the derbies over Christmas.

Glasgow Warriors bounced back from their opening day loss to Ulster by beating Benetton at Scotstoun convincingly. Although I don’t think Glasgow were ever not in control, the red card changed the game and all but ended it as a contest by half-time.

It was a shocking challenge by Scott Scrafton on Adam Hastings and should be worthy of a long ban in my opinion. There are so many challenges in the game at the minute surrounding player protection and head contact, what are and aren’t rugby incidents and the trade-off between creating a safer game but still protecting rugby’s entertainment, but there is no place for these types of challenges.

It’s not nice to see on the rugby pitch and there’s no excuse for it. It was a shame for Adam because it was only his second game back and I suspect it means he won’t play this weekend.

Arguably the most stunning rugby result of the weekend was Ireland Women’s win over New Zealand in WXV 1.

I’m not sure the winning try should have stood but that’s another story. The bottom line is that this was a monumental result in the female rugby landscape because New Zealand and England have been way ahead of everyone in recent years.

It’s encouraging because it shows the big gaps in quality between the top sides and the rest are starting to close and Scotland can take inspiration from this.

Scotland lost 15-12 to Ireland in the Women’s Six Nations and that was a disappointing result but it was one that got away from us rather than a match which Ireland dominated. It meant they got to go to WXV 1 rather than us but to see them then beat New Zealand shows what is achievable.

Ireland were a team we could have beaten and six months later they’ve gone out and beaten the world champions and I think that’s a very healthy sign for the female game. There’s no doubt having tournaments like WXV helps because it allows the Six Nations teams more exposure against the top nations like New Zealand and Canada. More exposure, more professionalism and more games is only going to have a positive impact on the growth of the women’s game.