SOME WEEKS JUST feel different to others. A big Test game in Dublin never quite takes over the city but if you kept your senses up there were clues something was waiting for us at the weekend, be it the occasional sight of a South Africa crest on the street, the small store where the assistant was listening to a rugby preview podcast over the speakers on Thursday afternoon, or the train being that bit busier, that bit earlier this afternoon.
This was the big one, evidenced in the large number of travelling supporters who wanted to be in Lansdowne Road tonight. A colleague who flew in from London earlier in the week informed us his flight was full of eager South Africans.
By the end of a chaotic, bruising contest in Dublin, they would be the supporters hugging the edges of the lower stands, applauding their team, when most of the Ireland players and fans had already found their nearest exits.
This felt damaging in the way so many had feared beforehand. We wouldn’t go as far as saying the Springboks’ arrival on these shores stirred up a sense of dread, although you couldn’t but notice the evenings were now darker, earlier, and the air carried more of a chill.
South Africa Fans outside the stadium ahead of the match. Gary Carr / INPHO
Gary Carr / INPHO / INPHO
There was a small bit of rugby chat as this writer stood in that biting cold on Wednesday evening, joining the long queue leading to The National Stadium. Only a few hours beforehand the venue had been announced as the location for a surprise warm-up show by My Bloody Valentine ahead of their sold-out date at the 3Arena tonight.
The band famously like to test the sound limitations of the venues they play, with the earplugs being dished out as you enter the arena a warning of what’s in store. This commitment to sonic exploration comes at a cost. No-one in attendance was surprised to see Kevin Shields alerting his bandmates to halt a song as he gestured toward guitar pedals and sound desks. Or when he did it for a second time. Or the third. These tunes, kept in cold storage from live performance for so long, weren’t going to be played unless Shields was completely satisfied the sound was exactly as it needed to be. When the Dubliner landed on the right mix, the power of his songs knocked you back.
Behind and around him, the rest of the band drove on regardless of what was happened stage left, unfazed. At one point a large plastic screen shielding drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig fell back onto the drum kit. Ó Cíosóig didn’t miss a beat, smiling at the mayhem as stage technicians ghosted through the shadows to fix the problem.
You had to smile. There is no one correct way to be brilliant at what you do. Some sweat and angst over the skills that elevate them to a supreme level. Some wear it lightly. What worked for Diego Maradona won’t work for Lionel Messi. Ireland will never be South Africa but believe they can reach the heights the Springboks have scaled by doing things the Ireland way.
Tonight in Dublin two different styles came together and produced a wild Test game, where Ireland fought with their lives but couldn’t land their punches after the bigger bully had bloodied their noses across a bruising first half.
South Africa built their dominance through the sheer, awesome power we all knew was coming. As much as Ireland looked to meet that aggression head-on, they found themselves beaten up in the pack, mullered in the scrum and spiralling into indiscipline, with referee Matthew Carley throwing about cards like confetti, three yellows and one red in the first half alone, all aimed at the team in white.
Ireland can have some gripes with how that first half unfolded, and certainly with how Carley’s cards stayed in his pocket after Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu introduced himself to Tommy O’Brien, but they could not live with the power of the Springboks’ pack.
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Tempers flare between Garry Ringrose and South Africa’s Sacha Feinberg Mngomezulu. Gary Carr / INPHO
Gary Carr / INPHO / INPHO
These Boks are going nowhere as they shape up for a shot at a third successive World Cup title in 2027, so if Ireland are to make their own piece of history at that tournament, one assumes this is a problem they will have to stare down again. Rassie Erasmus’ team will continue to lean into their physical superiority while trying to layer in the more expansive attacking game Tony Brown has instilled.
Ireland’s physicality is not going to be overhauled over 24 months, but there will be small adjustments. Paddy McCarthy will push Andrew Porter and ensure Ireland have two punchy options at loosehead. Joe McCarthy’s heft will be back in the Ireland pack. Ryan Baird, arguably Ireland’s stand-out player over the month, might have developed into a truly dominant Test-level flanker. The out-halves will have another two years of Test experience to their name.
But Ireland’s DNA will still be Ireland’s DNA. They will still be a team that needs a functioning lineout, and they will still be a team that needs their attack rolling at it’s fluid, accurate best if they are to take down the top two or three teams in the world. They aren’t going to do it through brute physicality.
Take Erasmus’s view on Ireland from the Chasing The Sun documentary. “Rugby’s a physical game, it’s not chess.” Well, Ireland aren’t going to put away the chess pieces anytime soon, but on nights where they are limited to one try, as they were here, they will always be struggling to keep their head above water.
The best version of Ireland under Andy Farrell, and Joe Schmidt before him, was all smooth attack and rousing, ferocious work in defence. They might not burn you on transition-attack, but they’ll unlock a defence through patience, accuracy and detail. They might not beat you up, but they’ll be well organised and good for a couple of momentum-swinging turnovers, like the ones Baird and Cian Prendergast produced under the pump here to keep these big bad Boks at bay a little longer.
Yet for all that sweat and effort, many of Ireland’s problems were of their own making. Some of the 18 penalties they conceded were careless and sloppy. Their conversion rate in the South Africa 22 was costly. At half-time both sides had made four visits to the opposition’s 22. Ireland averaged 1.4 points across those four entries to South Africa’s 4.7. Come the hour mark, South Africa had added four more entries, Ireland none, the home side by then long reduced to a damage limitation project which required them to dig deeper than they have at any other point this year. They deserve credit for that, as many teams would have been filleted by South Africa tonight.
A view of the South Africa team huddle after the match. Dan Sheridan / INPHO
Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO
Ireland will wonder how this may have unfolded if they had been more clinical in those early passages of play. They’ll remember that feeling from their flight home from Chicago earlier in the month.
This was, as Farrell put it, the litmus test for his team but the result won’t dramatically change the course of either team’s plans.
South Africa will look back at the year and feel they’ve taken steps that will aid their 2027 World Cup ambitions, and drive on accordingly. Winning in Dublin for the first time under Erasmus was another new experience ticked off for a group who retain a savage hunger for success.
This Ireland are not dead, but they are chasing to catch up with the Springboks, and whoever else will be tussling with them at the top of the tree come 2027. They can do it, and while they won’t do it by overhauling their personnel or scrapping the things that brought them to this level in the first place, this whole month stands as a stark reminder their current offering is not to the required standard.
The next two years could be two of the most fascinating and challenging of Farrell’s coaching career.
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Awesome Boks aren’t slowing down, Ireland have two years to catch up
SOME WEEKS JUST feel different to others. A big Test game in Dublin never quite takes over the city but if you kept your senses up there were clues something was waiting for us at the weekend, be it the occasional sight of a South Africa crest on the street, the small store where the assistant was listening to a rugby preview podcast over the speakers on Thursday afternoon, or the train being that bit busier, that bit earlier this afternoon.
This was the big one, evidenced in the large number of travelling supporters who wanted to be in Lansdowne Road tonight. A colleague who flew in from London earlier in the week informed us his flight was full of eager South Africans.
By the end of a chaotic, bruising contest in Dublin, they would be the supporters hugging the edges of the lower stands, applauding their team, when most of the Ireland players and fans had already found their nearest exits.
This felt damaging in the way so many had feared beforehand. We wouldn’t go as far as saying the Springboks’ arrival on these shores stirred up a sense of dread, although you couldn’t but notice the evenings were now darker, earlier, and the air carried more of a chill.
There was a small bit of rugby chat as this writer stood in that biting cold on Wednesday evening, joining the long queue leading to The National Stadium. Only a few hours beforehand the venue had been announced as the location for a surprise warm-up show by My Bloody Valentine ahead of their sold-out date at the 3Arena tonight.
The band famously like to test the sound limitations of the venues they play, with the earplugs being dished out as you enter the arena a warning of what’s in store. This commitment to sonic exploration comes at a cost. No-one in attendance was surprised to see Kevin Shields alerting his bandmates to halt a song as he gestured toward guitar pedals and sound desks. Or when he did it for a second time. Or the third. These tunes, kept in cold storage from live performance for so long, weren’t going to be played unless Shields was completely satisfied the sound was exactly as it needed to be. When the Dubliner landed on the right mix, the power of his songs knocked you back.
Behind and around him, the rest of the band drove on regardless of what was happened stage left, unfazed. At one point a large plastic screen shielding drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig fell back onto the drum kit. Ó Cíosóig didn’t miss a beat, smiling at the mayhem as stage technicians ghosted through the shadows to fix the problem.
You had to smile. There is no one correct way to be brilliant at what you do. Some sweat and angst over the skills that elevate them to a supreme level. Some wear it lightly. What worked for Diego Maradona won’t work for Lionel Messi. Ireland will never be South Africa but believe they can reach the heights the Springboks have scaled by doing things the Ireland way.
Tonight in Dublin two different styles came together and produced a wild Test game, where Ireland fought with their lives but couldn’t land their punches after the bigger bully had bloodied their noses across a bruising first half.
South Africa built their dominance through the sheer, awesome power we all knew was coming. As much as Ireland looked to meet that aggression head-on, they found themselves beaten up in the pack, mullered in the scrum and spiralling into indiscipline, with referee Matthew Carley throwing about cards like confetti, three yellows and one red in the first half alone, all aimed at the team in white.
Ireland can have some gripes with how that first half unfolded, and certainly with how Carley’s cards stayed in his pocket after Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu introduced himself to Tommy O’Brien, but they could not live with the power of the Springboks’ pack.
These Boks are going nowhere as they shape up for a shot at a third successive World Cup title in 2027, so if Ireland are to make their own piece of history at that tournament, one assumes this is a problem they will have to stare down again. Rassie Erasmus’ team will continue to lean into their physical superiority while trying to layer in the more expansive attacking game Tony Brown has instilled.
Ireland’s physicality is not going to be overhauled over 24 months, but there will be small adjustments. Paddy McCarthy will push Andrew Porter and ensure Ireland have two punchy options at loosehead. Joe McCarthy’s heft will be back in the Ireland pack. Ryan Baird, arguably Ireland’s stand-out player over the month, might have developed into a truly dominant Test-level flanker. The out-halves will have another two years of Test experience to their name.
But Ireland’s DNA will still be Ireland’s DNA. They will still be a team that needs a functioning lineout, and they will still be a team that needs their attack rolling at it’s fluid, accurate best if they are to take down the top two or three teams in the world. They aren’t going to do it through brute physicality.
Take Erasmus’s view on Ireland from the Chasing The Sun documentary. “Rugby’s a physical game, it’s not chess.” Well, Ireland aren’t going to put away the chess pieces anytime soon, but on nights where they are limited to one try, as they were here, they will always be struggling to keep their head above water.
The best version of Ireland under Andy Farrell, and Joe Schmidt before him, was all smooth attack and rousing, ferocious work in defence. They might not burn you on transition-attack, but they’ll unlock a defence through patience, accuracy and detail. They might not beat you up, but they’ll be well organised and good for a couple of momentum-swinging turnovers, like the ones Baird and Cian Prendergast produced under the pump here to keep these big bad Boks at bay a little longer.
Yet for all that sweat and effort, many of Ireland’s problems were of their own making. Some of the 18 penalties they conceded were careless and sloppy. Their conversion rate in the South Africa 22 was costly. At half-time both sides had made four visits to the opposition’s 22. Ireland averaged 1.4 points across those four entries to South Africa’s 4.7. Come the hour mark, South Africa had added four more entries, Ireland none, the home side by then long reduced to a damage limitation project which required them to dig deeper than they have at any other point this year. They deserve credit for that, as many teams would have been filleted by South Africa tonight.
Ireland will wonder how this may have unfolded if they had been more clinical in those early passages of play. They’ll remember that feeling from their flight home from Chicago earlier in the month.
This was, as Farrell put it, the litmus test for his team but the result won’t dramatically change the course of either team’s plans.
South Africa will look back at the year and feel they’ve taken steps that will aid their 2027 World Cup ambitions, and drive on accordingly. Winning in Dublin for the first time under Erasmus was another new experience ticked off for a group who retain a savage hunger for success.
This Ireland are not dead, but they are chasing to catch up with the Springboks, and whoever else will be tussling with them at the top of the tree come 2027. They can do it, and while they won’t do it by overhauling their personnel or scrapping the things that brought them to this level in the first place, this whole month stands as a stark reminder their current offering is not to the required standard.
The next two years could be two of the most fascinating and challenging of Farrell’s coaching career.
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