THERE was at least one satisfied Scotsman at St James' Park on Saturday. Richie Gray, not the current giant Scotland lock forward but the former SRU youth coach and native of Galashiels with the same name who now earns his crust with a role on the Springboks coaching staff as breakdown consultant, was unsurprisingly enthused about the muscular manner in which his charges had performed during their 34-16 win. While he was at pains to point out that it will all count for nothing unless the Group B leaders can finish the job against the USA on Wednesday, just perhaps Gray will have his perfect outcome, and both the country of his birth and his adopted nation will progress to the quarter finals.

"I think Scotland are not far away from being a very good team," said Gray. "It's been building for the last three years, not just the past six or eight weeks. They've got a strong core of players, that group from Glasgow who are used to winning. "I worked with guys like Stuart Hogg, Ross Ford, Richie Vernon, Greig Laidlaw, they all came through the Borders academy and it's great to see them on an international level, compete and be dangerous players. A lot will come down to how they avoid injuries but I think they have a team there that can do a lot of damage. They're very dangerous to play, put on a lot of width, with good steppers, good basic skills and passers. They're a difficult side to play.

"After Samoa losing to Japan that's their World Cup over," he added. "So it's really about how they motivate themselves this week now. It's down to Scotland to go and win that. Samoa will still be physical and Scotland will have to count the knocks they've picked up in a bruising encounter here. But you would back Scotland to go through, and hopefully we will too."

As for South Africa, they appear to be picking up momentum nicely after the trauma of that opening defeat to Japan in Brighton. "Listen, the Japan game was such a disaster for us that there has been a completely different animal going out on the field now and every game is a final," said Gray. "Even this game [against Scotland] means nothing now because we've got to beat the USA on Wednesday. We put ourselves in that position and we'll get ourselves out of it. I just felt that on Saturday it was another step up from Samoa. It was a closely contested game, very physical, but I thought our group just brought it."