“Finn has been training fully as well, so we’re optimistic for him to be available. We’ll obviously see how things progress. There are still a few days left, but he has trained fully today, so that’s great news.
“We’ve got everyone [else] fit and ready to go,” he added. “Apart from Rory Sutherland, who passed his HIA on field, but then subsequently failed HIA 2 and 3. He’s not training at the moment. He’ll be back in at the end of the week and we’ll assess things from there to hopefully have him involved for the last week.”
Despite the agonising nature of last week’s defeat to New Zealand, and the physical toll on the players of being part of such a high intensity match, de Villiers insisted there has been no issues lifting the team for this coming weekend’s challenge.
“The boys are really fired up and ready to go. They know how well they’ve competed against the number two team in the world. That also brings confidence in that we’ve been physically up there,” he said.
“Now it is important to keep growing. We’re a team that is consistently performing well against top teams, but we also want to see those victories coming now. That’s where we want to continue to grow.”
“There was so much positive from last weekend,” he added. “The only negative is we didn’t get the result, but there was such a great fightback in that second half to put New Zealand under pressure. They themselves have said it was a very physical game and we lived up to the physicality we wanted to bring into the game.
“Obviously, the result wasn’t there and that is something we’ve discussed. We’d like to finish our opportunities better, we’d like to make sure our composure is there at all times during a match. So there are obviously some little points to improve on, but also there’s so much positive there against the number two team in the world.”
De Villiers also praised he contribution of D’arcy Rae, who stepped into the tight-head berth vacated by Fagerson last weekend to deliver a solid all-round performance in only his second international start, and his first against tier one opposition.
“He was brilliant at set-piece. He stood up very, very well. His work at the breakdown was very strong, so our depth at tight-head is growing well. We’ve had a couple of niggles with some of our other tight-heads over the past few months and weeks. All of them are coming back into the fray as well at the moment, so we’re very happy about that.
“D’arcy has had a great start to the season with Edinburgh. The three of them in the front-row playing together at Edinburgh has helped us to have that cohesion and that unity going into the game. With a bit more luck in terms of some of the calls early on in the game, it could have been maybe a penalty or two for us as well.
“I’m very confident that this group can still grow. We’ve consistently been growing and I think there’s still growth in the boys in terms of where they want to be, the belief that they’ve got in themselves and the belief that we’ve got in them.
“These things do take time. When you start knocking on doors against the top five or six teams, it does take a bit of time to get the whole package together. But we also know where we want to grow and which moments we want to grow. Whether it be finishing off opportunities, whether it be that composure and making decisions, we know that’s where we want to be better.
“Argentina gave beaten the All Blacks recently, they’ve beaten the Springboks, they’ve beaten Australia, they’ve beaten many of the top teams. So it’s very important for us to make sure that we quickly learn from last week and get ready for a very tough game this weekend against a world-class side.
“They’re a team who have changed their way of scrummaging a bit, maybe because they have more players evolving in different countries and in different scrum mindsets and different scrum systems. They are now probably a bit more aligned to what you see all over, but definitely still very physical players, and have a lot of experience there with their hooker, Julián Montoya, as well. It’s really important for us to start well in terms of set-piece, again, make sure we grow on what we’ve done last weekend, but they’ll be stronger there.
“Attacking-wise, they pose a threat all over the pitch, they pose a threat in the air. It’s going to be important to do well in those departments and start well.
“One of the areas top teams are measured is how well they perform week in, week out, regardless of the result of the [previous] weekend. But more because of the inner drive of performing better.”
It is still possible for Scotland to finish this international window ranked sixth in the world, which would mean being in the top seeded group of international teams at the 2027 World Cup draw on 3rd December, but it requires several results to go their way over the next couple of weekend. Townsend’s boys must beat Argentina by 16 or more points and Tonga by any margin the following weekend, Ireland and France must both beat Australia by any margin, and England must beat Argentina by any margin.
