Hadden agony over missed chances

We saw the taming of the Beast, the sinking of the Bismarck, but not quite the downing of Peter de Villiers' stuttering Springboks. The 80 minutes here on Saturday had thrills, not a little spillage of blood, and a fizzing, frenetic finale. It even had the Scots attacking from under their own posts, as if Phil Godman had suddenly mutated into Serge Blanco. When Dave Pearson blew his whistle for the final time, though, every Caledonian in the house – on the pitch, on the sidelines and in the stands – was left in a state of sheer, despairing frustration.

As Frank Hadden, Scotland's head coach, was quick to lament: "We'll never have a better chance of beating the world champions. The game was there for the taking." Indeed it was.

Ultimately, though, as South Africa counted their blessings and prepared to head down to Twickenham with an even closer call behind them than they endured in Cardiff seven days previously, Hadden and his players were left with the torment of what might have been. If only Chris Paterson, with his trusty right boot, had not been removed from the action with a cheekbone injury in the 11th minute. If only Dan Parks had banged over two eminently kickable first-half penalties. If only Scotland hadn't nudged the door ajar for the Boks with the upping of their penalty count in the third quarter. If only Godman hadn't missed his sitter of a penalty with six minutes to go and taken an ill-judged option or two in that helter-skelter Scottish onslaught in the final 10 minutes.

Then again, the Edinburgh outside-half was not the only member of Hadden's troops to succumb to white-line fever, and the poor fellow did have his head all bloodied and bandaged. Godman's willingness to go for the gain-line, and sometimes break it, was one plus for Scotland to take from this tantalising near-miss. They have several more to build upon as they work towards the 2011 World Cup – as third-class pool-stage seeds now, having failed to hold on to the 10-0 half-time lead that came courtesy of Nathan Hines' 39th-minute try and a Godman conversion and penalty.

The attack that yielded the try was launched with a trademark snipe by Mike Blair, Scotland's scrum-half and captain, and surely as close as there can be at this long-distance stage to a shoo-in for British and Irish Lions' selection. There were also Lions-hearted displays from the vet-turned-tighthead-prop Euan Murray, who reduced "Beast" Mtawarira to something tame, and from Ross Ford, who was outstanding in the loose and a match at the coal face for John Smit once the Springbok captain had shifted from tighthead to hooker following the sinking of Bismarck du Plessis with a thigh problem. Still, Hadden was in no mood for consoling in the immediate aftermath. "It's difficult to explain how gutted we are, simply because of the amount of work that's gone in," he said. "I'm talking about the battles we've had since professionalism began, to cling on to our place at the top table with our resources." Those resources amount to 9,000 senior players in Scotland. In South Africa there are 450,000.

Ten of the South Africans who started on Saturday were in the team that beat the All Blacks at Carisbrook in Dunedin in July. Had Ruan Pienaar not started slotting the penalties after half-time and Jaque Fourie not dived over in the left corner, Murrayfield might well have been a northern hemisphere House of Pain for the struggling Springboks.

Scotland: Try Hines; Conversion Godman; Penalty Godman. South Africa: Try Fourie; Penalties Pienaar 3.

Scotland: C Paterson (Edinburgh); T Evans (Glasgow), B Cairns (Edinburgh), N De Luca (Edinburgh), R Lamont (Sale); P Godman (Edinburgh), M Blair (Edinburgh, capt); A Jacobsen (Edinburgh), R Ford (Edinburgh), E Murray (Northampton), N Hines (Perpignan), J Hamilton (Edinburgh), J White (Sale), J Barclay (Glasgow), A Hogg (Edinburgh). Replacements: H Southwell (Edinburgh) for Paterson, 11; D Parks (Glasgow) for Godman 11-20, 39-44; S Gray (Northampton) for White, 59; A Dickinson (Gloucester) for Jacobsen, 65; M Mustchin (Edinburgh) for Hines, 75; D Hall (Glasgow) for Ford, 76; R Lawson (Gloucester) for Evans, 78.

South Africa: C Jantjes (Stormers); JP Pietersen (Sharks), A Jacobs (Sharks), J de Villiers (Stormers), B Habana (Bulls); R Pienaar (Sharks), R Januarie (Stormers); T Mtawarira (Sharks), B du Plessis (Sharks), J Smith (Sharks, capt), B Botha (Bulls), V Matfield (Bulls), S Burger (Stormers), J Smith (Cheetahs), P Spies (Bulls). Replacements: B Mujati (Stormers) for Du Plessis, 5); J Fourie (Lions) for Habana, 54; A Bekker (Stormers) for Botha, 61; F Steyn (Sharks) for De Villiers, 66; R Kankowski (Sharks) for Spies, 74; G Steenkamp (Bulls) for Mtawarira, 75; D Rossouw (Bulls) for Burger, 75.

Referee: D Pearson (England).