A WEAKER TEAM than Ireland would have started to unravel after 20 minutes in Paris on Saturday.
At that stage, Andy Farrell’s side had lost five of their eight lineouts.
Ireland had already turned the ball over on six occasions inside the South African 22.
And despite a mountain of territory, Johnny Sexton and co. had zero points on the scoreboard. South Africa had three.
If it hadn’t been Ireland, you’d have said with some certainty that a team with those stats after the opening quarter would lose the game. Most sides just cannot afford that kind of dire return on attacking platforms. But Ireland aren’t most teams.
They’ve made a habit of steadying themselves during tough games when the circumstances might encourage players to lose their heads or feel sorry for themselves. Ireland are a resilient bunch. And so it was that the Irish coaches were relatively calm despite the poor opening quarter.
“There’s so much belief in what the players are doing,” said Ireland defence coach Simon Easterby. “They pitch up time and time again. Over the last couple of seasons, in particular, they’ve managed to put in performances like that.
“That’s not a one-off. We’ve done it in New Zealand, we’ve done it in the autumn series last year against South Africa, so that doesn’t surprise us. I guess the level of physicality and the brutality of the game these days, that’s something that the players have got to get their heads around and to a man they did that tonight.
“They pitched up time and again. It was relentless at times, we had a lot of defending to do and at the end the lineout defence, a couple of opportunities for them to have a crack at us and the lineout defence has held strong.”
The best thing for Ireland is that they know they didn’t get close to their best on Saturday night in Paris. To be fair, neither did the Boks. But this Irish team move forward determined to improve greatly on what we saw at Stade de France.
“We got the reward but there’s lots we could be better at and that’s the feeling in the changing room,” said Easterby. “Really pleased with a lot of aspects of the performance but we know we have to be better.”
World Cups are really just about winning, but Easterby said Ireland won’t waver from their in-built focus on performance as they now look to seal top spot in Pool B with a win over Scotland in two weekends’ time.
“I think that is important but we’re about performance. Yes, winning a World Cup, if you want to go all the way you have to win those types of games and you have to know how to win them.
“Maybe we made it tough for ourselves at times and we left a few points out there as well so we know that we didn’t have it all our own way and it certainly wasn’t anywhere near our perfect performance. But we found a way and that’s important as well.”
The Ireland squad broke up yesterday for a three-day holiday, with players and staff required to stay on French soil under World Cup rules. However, they will benefit from a breather from each other as they head to various destinations with family and friends.
When they reconvene in Tours later this week, it will be back to business with their feet firmly on the ground. The win over South Africa was just another pool victory, even if it does add to momentum behind this Ireland team, who have now won 16 games in a row.
“I think there’s probably now a good list of things that we’ve done over the last couple of seasons and that’s another one,” said Easterby.
“We’ve beaten South Africa in the World Cup for the first time, beaten the world champions. We did it in Dublin, but to beat them on neutral ground is something very special.
“There’s a few things that have gone on over the last couple of seasons that give the guys confidence and trust in what we’re doing.
“This is another stepping stone towards what we all want to try to achieve over the next couple of weeks and we’re genuinely feeling that we can get better and we need to get better as the competition goes on.”