Westhuyzen leads rout of Scotland
 |  Van der Westhuzen scores a late try to complete the rout of Scotland |
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EDINBURGH, Scotland -- South Africa rounded off their tour of the British Isles with a morale-boosting 45-10 destruction of a hopelessly out-gunned Scotland side at Murrayfield.
Fly-half Jaco van der Westhuyzen collected the man of the match award after providing 14 of the Springboks' points with three coolly executed drop goals and a late try.
It was also an encouraging afternoon for the generation of players South Africa will count on at the 2007 World Cup.
"It's good to be on the winning side and hopefully we showed the critics back home," said van der Westhuyzen.
"It was great to score that late try - it was all the frustration coming out."
Bryan Habana, a try-scoring substitute in last week's defeat by England, marked his first international start with a pair of breakaway tries in the first half and Solly Tyibilika marked his first appearance in a Springbok shirt with a try and a composed all-round performance at flanker.
Winger Jaque Fourie was the South Africans' other try scorer on an afternoon that will have eased some of the pressure on coach Jake White following back-to-back defeats by Ireland and England.
South Africa's start could scarcely have been less auspicious, Percy Montgomery pulling a straight-in-front penalty wide of the posts in the 2nd minute.
But it only took a further quarter of an hour for White's experimental side to shatter the fragile confidence of their hosts and open up a commanding lead.
Fourie claimed first blood with an acrobatic touchdown in the right-hand corner after van der Westhuyzen had darted through the Scots midfield and off-loaded to scrum-half Fourie du Preez.
Tyibilika then dived over from a ruck after South Africa had stolen a lineout five yards from the Scots line.
The Springboks had their tails up and a phase of exhilarating running rugby should have have culminated in a third try when du Preez failed to gather Tyibilika's pass inside when he was within two strides of the line.
Van der Westhuyzen's first drop stretched the lead to 15-0 before Scotland finally got some points on the board through Chris Paterson's 24th minute penalty.
The South Africans responded immediately with van der Westhuyzen's sweetly struck drop from five yards into the Scots half.
Scotland's cause was not helped by the injury which forced scrumhalf Chris Cusiter off after only 12 minutes but they could have no excuses for the two slack passes that allowed Habana to score his two tries.
The first came from full-back Hugo Southwell, whose attempt to find Cusiter's replacement, Mike Blair, was easily read by Habana, who raced clear to touch down under the posts.
At 25-3 there appeared to be no way back for the Scots, but they were handed a golden opportunity to make a fight of it when Springbok forwards Bakkies Botha and Victor Matfield were sin-binned four minutes before the interval.
Their absence left the South Africans with little option but to collapse a scrum under the posts and Scotland were awarded a penalty try that Paterson converted.
The Scots then self-destructed once more, Blair emulating Southwell's blunder with a slack pass on the South African 20-meter line. Habana gathered above his head and sprinted over 80 yards to score.
A 46th minute penalty from Montgomery and van der Westhuyzen's third drop of the afternoon, on the hour mark, stretched the lead to 38-10 before the Springbok fly-half rounded off his afternoon in fitting fashion, running on to Gaffie Du Toit's pass to touch down under the posts.
Argentina next weekend will provide a tougher test but the Tri-Nations champions will head back to the southern hemisphere in good spirits.
