SCOTLAND won’t forget South Africa in a hurry.

Certainly not centre Peter Horne, who danced past them to run in a try which was a modern-day Murrayfield classic then collected a bruise or two for the trouble when Springbok captain Siya Kolisi threw his head back violently in an apparent bid to free himself at a ruck.

Not Edinburgh lock forward Ben Toolis either, the big man with the flowing mane who was the most diverting of decoys in the first half line-out move which allowed Hamish Watson to scamper over the line untouched from Stuart McInally’s throw.

And nor Gregor Townsend, who ultimately saw his side strong-armed out the famous victory they were dreaming of to put alongside their previous triumphs here against Australia and New Zealand.

That prospect appeared tantalisingly close at points during that second half, not least when the visitors were briefly down to 14 men after Willie Le Roux’s yellow card or when at least two opportunities to make headway from line-out drives presented themselves. South Africa surely sensed the danger too. But as most of rugby’s big beasts do when cornered, they went back to basics. They swarmed all over the ball and suffocated the Scots’ chances.

No, Scotland won’t forget this one in a hurry. And that may be no bad thing, with the two nations potentially back on a painful collision course for a year’s time at the Rugby World Cup in Japan. While that equation would mean one finishing top of their pool and the other in second - South Africa have been grouped with New Zealand while the Scot s are in with the team who beat them this weekend, Ireland – Gregor Townsend’s side will need to hang with the big dogs until the hour mark then also be the side capable of finishing things off down the stretch.

“We didn’t really feel like we got outmuscled at any point,” said Horne. “We had a huge emphasis on that going into the game, about our defence especially, our physicality and line speed. Bar a couple of little errors that they capitalised on, I thought it was pretty good.

“What has to improve if we play them again?” he added “Probably trying to adapt a little bit quicker to the defence that they were showing. They were putting us under a lot of pressure and if we could just have held our depth a little bit, there was a few times where we took the ball to the line a little bit much when we probably didn’t need to, to play round them.

“It’s a classic big Test match - it’s going to come down to a couple of little things,” he added. “We didn’t feel like we were far away, but maybe a couple of mauls as well. They did quite well at slowing us down. If we could just have got the ball out of that maul and then backed our shape at the finish, you’d like to think we could have scored a couple of tries.”

“The Springboks are a very physical team, especially as a forward pack,” said Toolis. “We sort of matched that at times but they still won the breakdown battle. There were about three opportunities to win the game there, we had a driving maul towards the end, and fair play to them, they defended it well. We just struggled to get the ball out.

“But ultimately we only lost by six points and I think they will be thinking WE were a tough team to play against. If we do play them come the World Cup, I think they know it won’t be an easy game, that we will be there to front up and won’t take a backwards step. It is always going to be on your mind, the last time you played them.”

They might not be South Africa, but Argentina will give a fairly passable impression back at Murrayfield in the last match of this Autumn internationals campaign. “Obviously we had a good win over there in the summer,” said Toolis, “but watching them play since then they have come on leaps and bounds. A very physical team, with very good counter attack, very good attacking backs, sort of like the Springboks so it will be tough again next week. It is going to be extremely tough and we know that.”

After what seemed like an age as referee Romain Poite consulted the TMO over Huw Jones’ two back-of-the-hand passes, Horne at least had the privilege of touching down for the best try of his life – even if it would have been far sweeter had it come in a winning effort.

“Yeah, that was probably the best team try [I’ve ever scored]. It was exactly what we kind of talked about through the week - outworking them, from the width, and resetting. We knew we could sting them out the back of our forward pod.

“It was nice to pick them off. That’s one of our trademarks - showing a bit of energy and just working hard to get on the end of things. I was blowing out my hoop so I didn’t really worry too much about the TMO. I quite enjoyed just getting an extra minute’s break.”