The South African women's rugby team return home after completing a morale-boosting 2-0 series win over Scotland following their thrilling come from behind 41-17 victory on Saturday at Lasswade.

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Scotland dictated play for the first 50 minutes but were overcome in the latter stages of the second half by a hugely physical South African outfit after the hosts had deservedly led 14-7 at the break.

South Africa, unbeaten this season, won the first match 27-8 at the same venue the previous weekend.

Flanker and South African captain Mandisa Williams delivered another commanding performance and she was deservedly named as Player of the Match.

South Africa's national training squad will have two further preparation camps before the finalised team fly out to England in August to participate in the IRB Women's World Cup.

Coach Denver Wannies was satisfied with the series win, but cautioned against too much confidence.

"We won because of our better conditioning and by applying the basics in the second half," Wannies said.

"We knew Scotland would come with passion and commitment and they did not disappoint us."

"However, we allowed them to dictate matters for far too long and then we also had a yellow card just before half-time."

"We can draw a lot of inspiration from our second half performance and I feel that overall we did much better than what we had hoped."

scotland head coach Gary Parker admitted the game had been snatched from them as the tourists built momentum in the second stanza.

"We did a lot of good things and the scoreboard might not reflect that. I know a lot of the girls are really hurting by that result," Parker said.

full back Nicola Halfpenny scored three penalties and prop Heather Lockhart went over for Scotland's only try of the first half, while Mandisa Williams crashed over for South Africa, scoring a try which was converted by Zandile Nojoko (full back) to bring the half-time score to 14-7 in favour of the hosts.

Scotland started the first half in much the same fashion, dictating the play, and with South African inside centre Daphne Scheepers yellow carded, the hosts made the advantage count when Halfpenny added a fourth penalty to stretch the lead to 17-7.

Nojoko, however, slotted a penalty to reduce the score to 17-10, signalling the start of a remarkable comeback for the South Africans who scored five unanswered, taking the lead and stretching the gap throughout the remainder of the match.

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