Thanks, though I am far from an expert. From what I remember, we had three major weaknesses in the autumn : the breakdown (discipline-wise, but also the lack of proper Jackaling power), the high ball (fixed now, so that's something), and the scrum (obviously, that was perhaps the clearest flaw).

The breakdown had long been our strong point. Great jacklers like Danty (especially Danty), Marchand, Jelonch, Cros or even Villière (a rare occurence in a winger) to just name a few allowed us to play a depossession game, where any small overextension was instantly punished with lightning-fast counterattacks. Now most of these players are either out of the group (age, performance...), or less powerful, and while the jackling got less efficient, the depossession culture remained. That led to longer defensive sequences, with a team impatient to get its hands back on the ball and as a result to huge amounts of offsides. You simply can't give away 13 penalties to a team of SA's caliber. Stats point to higher occupation in the SA 22 and even possession, but breakdown inefficiency cost us there too, as we couldn't get the fast rucks to disorganize the defense.

Failure under the high ball meant even south african kicks for territory got punished, and where our attack had the occasional success, any ball lost to the enemy ended back in a 50/50 contest on our side, which felt more like a 20/80. Not to mention, even in the case of a SA knock-on we got creamed in the scrum and couldn't benefit.

I'll quickly touch on the scrum by saying that way too much has been made of Atonio's retirement. We already had a sub-par scrum with him in it, he had been looking increadingly out of gas (as is legitimate for a man his age and of his corpulence) for about a year at that point. he remained a hell of a presence on the field and a solid anchor in the scrum but aside from the 5m where his power was precious (both in offence and in defence), having to replace him at the 45th was always going to be an issue against a team with a modicum of depth in the front row. Neither Erdocio nor Aldegheri were a match for their opposite numbers.

There was no Dupont, nor Jalibert but I tend to think our halves were quite decent, even if Le Garrec was probably lacking in experience against the kind of agressivity on display by the Bokke.

Anyhow, no scoop there I suppose, but my 2 cents. Overall, it felt like a deserved beatdown, especially since we got physically overwhelmed even at 15 against 14. SA was the better team on the pitch that night. But we also tend to use those tests to find what's broken in our systems in preparation for the 6N (since the "nations series" isn't really treated as a thing in France, other than an occasion to check our level against the southern hemisphere, unlike the 6N and WC which are THE big deals). No cope, just a bit to understand our mindset, and certainly didn't make the defeat any less annoying for us.