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Almost certainly not is the answer, but a French journalist raised the idea with Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber, who was less than impressed by the idea as he took it at face value.
Football’s World Cup has a couple of famous examples of teams playing out results that would see them through to the knockouts, with the most notorious being Germany and Austria’s draw in 1982 that eliminated Algeria.
Ireland and the Netherlands reached an armistice midway through their 1990 group game and there are more recent examples, but the idea that the Celtic cousins could somehow concoct the scenario that would eliminate the Springboks is pretty far-fetched.
Scotland would need to beat Ireland by more than 21 points, securing a bonus point, but also concede four tries to Ireland along the way. Such a laughable scenario would see Gregor Townsend’s team top the pool on points difference, with Ireland eliminating the world champions on head to head.
It’s one of many scenarios at play this week and probably the least likely to occur.
Ireland will go out to win the game and book their place in a quarter-final against the Pool A runners-up in Paris on Saturday week, a result that would see South Africa qualify in second and play the winners of Pool B – most likely France – on Sunday week.
Watch: The pool permutations ahead of Ireland’s final pool game against Scotland on Saturday
If they lose, we’re into the permutations, with a 4-1 defeat on points enough to see them through and a 5-1 loss making life tricky.
South Africa didn’t build a big enough score against Tonga on Sunday to give themselves a cushion as they closed out their pool with a 49-18 win and afterwards a French journalist asked Nieneber about some sort of Celtic conspiracy.
Rather than dismiss it out of hand, Nienaber took the question at face value.
“That would be match-fixing. It would be extremely disappointing,” he said.
“Could I believe in a scenario that they would decide on a scenario that they would decide, ‘OK, they would get that amount of points and therfore get South Africa out of the World Cup?’
“That would be probably be match-fixing, I would say, I hope not. Rugby’s clean, we wear those t-shirts, so I hope not. That would be extremely disappointing, don’t you think?”
Nienaber needn’t worry, South Africa are almost certainly in the last eight and Sunday’s win saw them lose Makazola Mapimpi to injury but gain Handre Pollard, who kicked all his goals in an assured display.
They now have a break before their thoughts turn to a probable last-eight clash.
“The positive is it is pretty much similar to what we experienced in 2019 when we also finished our pool quite early,” Nienaber said.
“I think we had a 12-13 day preparation break before we went into our quarter-final against Japan. It is something we have done before as a group. It worked out well for us back then, so we’ll give them two-three days off and then start preparing.
“Until we know what the outcome is of the pool and who we will face, the France-New Zealand pool will only be determined on Friday night, so we will only actually know, depending on how (Pool B) finish, we will have a good idea of who we will play.
“I think in the first week now, give the guys some time off to get away from the game, to have a little bit of a mental break and then start focusing on what we can do better. So internally focusing on us on things we must improve if we want to stay in this competition until the end.”
Pollard’s display was the big talking point after Manie Libbok and Faf de Klerk had endured patchy performances off the tee in the tournament before the 2019 World Cup winner’s return from injury.
“Handre, the important part is he had 30 minutes at Premiership Cup level, which is a little bit below international (level). Tonight, he got 50 minutes against a proper Tonga side that has got better as the tournament has gone on. They are a team who will just improve the more they play tier-one nations,” Nienaber said.
“They have some top players that have played for New Zealand, Australia. Some of them play for the Crusaders, Toulouse, so they know what rugby is about.
“He got a proper test match against that. He got through 50 minutes.
“I think he will just get better. I think he was solid. You look at his ball carries – that was decisive and good. His defence, I thought his level changed well and he put some proper shoulder hits in.
“I thought his off-the-ball work was good and his kicking game, in general, was good. The fundamentals (for which) we wanted him to tick the boxes, I think he ticked tonight.”
Pollard was delighted to be back.
“It has been a crazy rollercoaster,” the Leicester Tiger said.
“There have been extreme lows, of course, early on and extreme highs to get recalled, so really just great to be back in the environment with the boys.
“Hopefully, contribute as much as I can in whatever role that may be. I am just here to help the team succeed and I am excited.”
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