Sport24's Rob Houwing picks through the pieces of South Africa's defeat to Scotland at Murrayfield.
"So where does all this leave embattled Bok coach Peter de Villiers and his lieutenants?
"Only the head honchos at SA Rugby know whether achieving the Grand Slam was the essential requirement for De Villiers to get a passport through to the World Cup after the Tri-Nations near-fiasco a little earlier in the year.
"Whether this was the case or not, bungling the challenge at the supposedly modest Scottish hurdle will not be absorbed in a particularly compassionate manner back at headquarters in Newlands, you can be sure.
"Maybe, too, some cynical observers will be tempted to say that the Boks had only got to the halfway stage unscathed in their Slam bid through sheer grit and mongrel anyway – not because they showed any genuinely exciting new dimensions."
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