ANDY FARRELL WAS left with quite a few frustrations in Pretoria but top of the list was the stuff Ireland had direct control over.
They watched South Africa surge into a 10-3 lead in the opening quarter and though they dragged themselves into the contest with a try before half time and battled hard throughout the second half, they ran out 27-20 losers.
Farrell had no gripes with the final scoreline, regretting Ireland’s poor effort in the opening half.
“It had a little bit of everything and the unexpected was popping up every now and again, wasn’t it?” said Farrell.
“And that was the game in the end. In the cold light of day, I thought South Africa deserved to win the game so congratulations to them.
“First half, I thought we was off. I thought we gave away access for them to be able to play their game. Defensively, we was a bit passive, certainly for the first try but then the story of the game for me, after some words at half-time, I thought it was courageous the way we defended and got ourselves back into the game.
“In fact, it’s the make-up of this team and history would say it, that even with the type of performance in the first half, we hung in there, we don’t go away. You know, there are plenty of teams that would have been under the pump in the first half like that and then seen the game run away from them in the second half. We didn’t.
“We stayed in the fight and could’ve, would’ve, should’ve with some decisions that, rightly or wrongly, didn’t go our way.”
Which brings us to his second frustration – some of those decisions.
Farrell wasn’t willing to get into the details of the big TMO calls that went against his side, first for James Lowe’s disallowed try and then for the Springboks’ score through Cheslin Kolbe but he was seemingly displeased.
“Well, it’s not for me to say, is it? I saw quite a few of them live and I had a dubious thought about it but that’s life, isn’t it?
“We’ll go through the right channels and make sure we do things properly. You’ll make of it what you want. We have to go through the right channels. Lucky, unlucky? That’s the game.”
There was the frustration of the injuries Ireland suffered along the way, with hooker Dan Sheehan forced off at half time by a knee injury, Jamie Osborne replaced after taking a knock to the groin, Robbie Henshaw taking a knock that saw him also depart at the interval, and Craig Casey suffering a nasty blow to the head.
There was most concern over Casey.
“He’s concussed,” said Farrell. “He was still on the trolley when I came in at the end so obviously it was concerning enough but he was up and walking around, not quite himself yet but he’s up and about and wondering what’s going on.”
There was frustration about Ireland’s errors.
The most obvious one was James Lowe’s before the match-sealing Springboks scrum penalty try when he tried to field a restart that looked like it was going to go dead. The home side took full advantage by driving the Irish scrum over their own tryline.
“It’s an error,” said Farrell. “It’s an error. I’ve no doubt James will put his hand up to that.
“It’s fool’s gold, isn’t it? Some of the kick-offs as well, Craig caught and we end up 20 metres from our own line. If you’ve got the courage to let it bounce, it goes dead. At the same time, if it bounces up you look stupid. We don’t know either way.”
Lowe was also involved in the aforementioned Kolbe try, doing his best to keep the ball in play only for Kolbe to win the race to the scraps and nudge ahead to finish. Farrell was frustrated that Ireland didn’t react better.
“Well, I was more disappointed – it was a special play by Kolbe, to chase that ball,” said Farrell.
“It’s one of the reasons they won the World Cup, with him chasing down the kicker in France, but we were slack in not backing James up.
“We know they’re a team that fights for those scraps and we needed to be better in those instances.
“You’ll make your own decision on whether he still had the ball in his right hand or whether the ball hit him as he threw the ball back infield and his foot was in touch. That’s for us all to debate.”
The interprovincial games were absolutely các for those who are wondering