Autumn Internationals/Scotland 10; South Africa 45: By night the illuminated Murrayfield looks like a particularly exotic space ship. And for Scotland's long-suffering followers trudging home in the Edinburgh gloom there was a sense that visitors from another world had just invaded.
A week earlier the Springboks coach, Jake White, had called the defeat at Twickenham "men against boys". In which case this South Africa side are going to be a bit of a handful when they outgrow their short trousers. The Springboks outmuscled and outplayed an abject Scottish team in a manner that was embarrassing.
When the Mexican waves begin halfway through the second half you know the crowd has lost interest in the contest. This was pretty much over after a quarter of an hour when the debutant flanker Solly Tyibilika burrowed over for the visitors' second try.
Scotland's coach, Matt Williams, to his credit, did not attempt to excuse his team, calling the performance "unacceptable", and the Scottish players fronted up with as much dignity as they could muster. But Williams has lost 10 of 12 games in his first year in charge and next up come Six Nations challenges from France and Ireland. Life will not get any easier.
Former captain Chris Paterson remained upbeat: "There's absolutely no doubt we'll go into the Six Nations with greater confidence than we did last year. We know we have improved since then.
"This was the last match of the series and unfortunately everyone will go away and remember this one rather than the other ones.
"But we'll look at this series as a block of four. It wasn't an acceptable performance against South Africa but there were good signs in the previous games."
White sympathised with Scotland - "Not too many teams in the world would like to play against Australia and the Springboks in successive weeks" - and pointed out that many of the new faces in his much changed side had been able to concentrate on conditioning themselves and resting for the past month.
Donnie MacFadyen, Scotland's flanker, was brutally honest. "If we aspire to be a successful team, we have to play these sides week in, week out. But that was a very physical game, they're a big team and they're up in your face all the time and play the defensive patterns really well."
Scottish rugby is in the dock, but they did suffer doses of Murphy's Law, losing one of their brighter young players, the scrumhalf Chris Cusiter, after 15 minutes. The lock Nathan Hines followed him to the dressing-room shortly afterwards with broken ribs. He was badly missed as Scotland's forwards tried to cope with the physical challenge.
After their loss Scotland tried to drag themselves back into the game, but their supporters looked on horrified as Springbok wing Bryan Habana intercepted a Hugo Southwell pass to run in a try from the Scottish 10-metre line.
Then, in a farcical 10 minutes before the break when the Springbok pack was reduced to six men with both locks, Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha, in the sin-bin, Habana repeated the feat, this time latching on to a pass from the hapless Dan Parks to run in his second try from 80 metres.
Three weeks earlier Australia's coach Eddie Jones bemoaned the fact that the width of the Murrayfield pitch had been reduced overnight. Now Scotland's fans wished it had been lengthened with the hope that Habana could be caught.
But, with Jaco van der Westhuyzen rubbing in a tub full of salt with three drop-goals and a late try, this was a day the Scots were always chasing shadows.
SCOTLAND: Southwell (Edinburgh; Morrison, Glasgow, 77); Paterson (Edinburgh), Hinshelwood (Worcester), Henderson, Lamont (both Glasgow); Parks (Glasgow; Ross, Leeds, 58), Cusiter (Borders; Blair, Edinburgh, 15); Jacobsen (Edinburgh), Bulloch (Russell, London Irish, 77), Kerr (Leeds; Douglas, Borders, 62), Grimes (Newcastle), Hines (Edinburgh; MacLeod, 21), White (Sale; Petrie, Glasgow, 58), MacFadyen (Glasgow), Hogg (Edinburgh).
SOUTH AFRICA: Montgomery (Gwent Dragons); Fourie (Cats), Joubert (Stormers; Du Toit, Sharks, 76), Julies (Stormers; Bobo, Cats, 80), Habana (Cats); Van der Westhuyzen (NEC Japan), Du Preez (Bulls; Claassens, 76); Steenkamp (Cats; Du Randt; Cats, 58); Smit (Sharks), Van der Linde (Stormers; Coetzee, Bulls, 78), Botha (Sharks), Matfield (Bulls; Britz, 65), Tyibilika (Lions), Rossouw (Bulls), Van Niekerk (Stormers; Cronje, Bulls, 56).Sin-bin: Matfield 40. Botha 42.
Referee: N Williams (Wales).
