Gutted, devastated, frustrated, angry. Take your pick, the Scotland players used all of them, and more, to try to sum up their emotion-filled distress of knowing they were the better team on the field but somehow contrived to lose a match they could, and should, have won.

The bigger picture of World Cup seedings hardly entered into the mood of desolation around the Scotland changing room, but in three years’ time it could come back to haunt them. Unless Argentina rescue them by beating Ireland next weekend, which would preserve the Puma’s place in the top four of the world rankings but relegate Ireland to the ninth place currently occupied by Scotland, the Scots will be the third seeds in their pool and would have to beat one of the leading powers to get to a quarter-finals.

There was no doubt about who got the prize for the most dejected figure. Phil Godman, sporting cuts to his eyebrow and forehead, knew how important the kick he missed from in front of the posts had been. “The dressing-room is devastated, it was a chance to take down the world champions and we didn’t take it. Overall, I was pleased with my game but the kick at the end soured that,” he said.

“I’ve not been kicking regularly so it might have been a lack of conviction. At least we stayed down that end and should have scored a try. I’m gutted. In the scrum, the ball got a bit loose, then we lost the ball in midfield, which was disappointing. We wanted to keep the pressure on. In hindsight, perhaps we should have kept it tighter.”

Jim Hamilton, the lock was in no better mood. “I’m absolutely gutted. At half-time I thought it was coming together, we deserved to be up, but to lose like that... I’m so deflated. It’s been a tough couple of weeks but to get nothing out of the kind of rugby we have been playing, the way the boys got stuck in, is so disappointing that we didn’t come away with anything — again.

“If we want to be up there we need to beat these teams, especially at home. It would have been a sign of progress if we had won, but we didn’t. We have to start winning games. We should have won, could have won, but we didn’t. It just seems to be excuses after excuses, but there has to come a time very soon that we start coming away with wins.”

Among the frustrations for the front five was that when they had a scrum on the Springbok five-metre line in the final minutes, the ball went out to the backs even though the pack was driving towards the line. Euan Murray, the tighthead, thought the decision might have been delayed a bit. “We were going in the right direction,” he noted diplomatically.

Ross Ford, the hooker, agreed that the scrum has turned into an under-appreciated weapon for the Scots but was much more concerned about the final result. “We were confident in the scrum, but we need to look at the test and see where we can improve. We can’t afford to rest on our laurels, that level of scrummaging is what we have to produce every week now. Everybody knows that it was there in this game, we had a chance but didn’t take it.”

At least there should be no lack of confidence next week against Canada, but anything they achieve there will be far too late to affect their world ranking. As many Scottish eyes will be on events in Dublin as on the pitch in Aberdeen.