ONE down; one to go. After months of anticipation and some controversy, the first of the so-called "Bok Jocks" is officially more Jock than Bok and Willem [WP] Nel says even if he ends up facing his former countrymen in the World Cup, he is fully committed to his adopted country.
"For Scotland to give me this opportunity is amazing and I wanted to grab it with both hands and show that I can be what they needed," he said afterwards. "It was really tough, one of my toughest 30 minutes, but I'm glad I got on the pitch and I was very excited."
"All I think about is that I want to be the best in what I can do for the team. I don't want to let them down. If I can hold the scrum steady and give the backs what they want then my job is done."
Nel is one of two "project players" – Josh Strauss is the other – given extended contracts in Scotland on the understanding that if they proved themselves over the three-year residency period then they would get the chance to stake a claim for places in the World Cup squad. Longer term, Cornell Du Preez, the Edinburgh flanker, makes a third but won't qualify until October next year, by which time World Rugby [the rebranded International Rugby Board] may have changed the rules.
Afterwards, Nel made no attempt to hide his emotion at having made the breakthrough when he came off the bench early in the second half to replace Mike Cusack at tighthead prop. Alasdair Dickinson, his Edinburgh loosehead partner was already on and Ross Ford soon joined them to make it an all-Edinburgh front row.
"We scrum together at Edinburgh so that helped, but all the front-row players have worked really hard together in the pre-season so I don't think it really mattered who came on or when. We would always be a very good pack," Nel said.
"It's a great feeling. It was three years of hard work and it was up to me to grab the opportunity. All I can do is play every Saturday, in and out, and perform. If the coaches believe in me and if the people out there believe in me – believe I can fill the spot – then I will take it. When you go on the pitch you know you have one job to do. After the whistle, though, I did have a moment to think what a great feeling it was and what a great opportunity."
The front row change did coincide with a change of fortunes for the Scots in the tight, though, as Vern Cotter, the head coach pointed out later, the Italians changed their front row at about the same time. It would take a lot of analysis to work out whether Scotland really did get better or if it was just as case of the veterans Italy brought on no longer being up to the job.
With a more stable platform up front, the Scots were able to get their hands on some decent possession for the first time and started to show the same attacking threat that earned them three tries in their first warm-up match in Ireland. In the end, some ambitious work in broken play put Matt Scott away down the touchline to supply the pass for Henry Pyrgos to score the winning try.
"We needed to get a win and this is the first of the year," said Scott, who was making his first start in any game since March. "It would not have been good going into the World Cup without having won a game all year, so we will take that from this game – it is good to get the winning habit back. I thought I had a reasonably solid game, a couple of things to work on and a couple of times I did feel tired but I have to accept that, I am not going to be as fit as I would be having played a few games."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here