Sione Tuipulotu admits to a “quiet confidence” in the Scotland camp as he prepares to lead his men against the world champion Springboks in the Republic for the first time.
The Boks have beaten Scotland 25 times in 30 meetings, including a win in the 2023 World Cup pool stages and 32-15 victory at Murrayfield in 2024. Rassie Erasmus’ troops, too, have an unbeaten record versus the Scots in South Africa.
Now, Tuipulotu, capped 39 times for his adoptive country, faces perhaps his toughest assignment yet – Saturday’s Nations Championship Test at Loftus.
“This is why I started playing rugby when I was 12 years old, you know, preparing for the opportunity to play the world champions in their backyard,” the Australian centre said.
MORE: Scots brace for ‘hostile’ Loftus
“I feel like I’m in a rare space in my career where I’m not going to get this opportunity again, to be coached by this coaching staff, to play with this group of players.
“I’m very grateful to be captaining this side and I want to make full use of the opportunity.”
Despite the magnitude of the occasion, Tuipulotu was careful not to overstate Scotland’s chances of an upset in Pretoria.
“There’s no point talking about anything like that before the game, because you’ve got to go out there and play the world champions in their backyard. I’d be stupid as a captain to sit up here and say so,” the 29-year-old added.
PLUS: Gregor to drop his Bomb Squad on Boks
“I’m confident in my group, but I would like to think it’s more of a quiet confidence and we’ll focus on ourselves.
“I think playing any Test team in their backyard, especially the back-to-back world champions is as big as it gets, but we also don’t need to make it any bigger than it already is.
“We’ll just go out there on Saturday and put out our best performance.”
Scotland arrived on the Highveld this week buoyed by a big win over Los Pumas in Argentina, which built on impressive performances against England and France in the 2026 Six Nations.
TEAM: Schoeman starts for Scots as Russell returns
“We’re a much different team now. I would like to think that we’ve kind of evolved into becoming the team that we want to become,” Tuipulotu said.
“We obviously saw bits of that in the Six Nations and I was really proud of the performance last week away from home.
“And yeah, I would like to think the games we’ve played over the last 12 months have shown that we’re a little bit of a different team than we’ve played them [the Boks] last time at Murrayfield.”
Photo: Ian MacNicol/Getty Images
The post Scottish skipper on picking Boks’ pocket appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
