RASSIE ERASMUS HAS experienced a series of deeply satisfying wins over the last few years, but you sensed tonight’s defeat of Ireland in Dublin was right up there for the South Africa boss.

As full-time sounded and his players celebrated a dominant 24-13 victory, Erasmus could be seen offering a thumbs up to the Irish crowd situated around the coaching box. Minutes later he entered the Aviva Stadium press conference room with a beer in hand and a smile on his face.

“Any beer is nice after a win, especially against a quality team like Ireland, who’s totally dominated us since we’ve been a group together,” Erasmus said.

“If you take the five games, they’re still 3-2 up against us, so we won’t get carried away with this, but yeah the beer is a little bit sweeter and we’re just thankful that we could manage to beat them here.

South Africa's head coach Rassie Erasmus. Gary Carr / INPHO Gary Carr / INPHO / INPHO

“We’re proud after a long season to grind through a win against a team like them at home, for the first time in 13 or 14 years (since 2012).”

While South Africa made full use of their power game, Erasmus complimented Ireland for their ability to frustrate the Springboks after half time, limiting them to five points, although the visitors seemed happy to just keep turning the screw at scrum time.

And proud of how his players dealt with the chaotic nature of the game, with a total of five cards shown be referee Matthew Carley.

“Obviously the game was very physical, there was a 20 minute red card given (to James Ryan), which I thought was the right call.

“The referee or one of the touch judges said always illegal, which I thought always illegal is a very weird word, from when does always illegal start and when does it end? So I think there’s something to clear up there, but I thought it was the right call so that the other player could come back onto the field.

“I do think we were dominant in scrums. I’m not saying we should have gotten yellow cards or not, but we’ve been part of quite a few games that was like this, where we had to grind it out to 14 men.

“There was a totally different challenge here. I thought we were dominant for most parts of the game, but just couldn’t kill it when we were inside the 22.

“So, yeah, it was hectic, it was difficult to manage, it was difficult sometimes to understand who’s off and who’s on and who comes back and who’s got a HIA and who’s injured, but, that’s Test match rugby at the highest level and you know, you have to understand and manage those kind of things.

“I think Ireland were just as physical,” he added.

To keep us out there off a dominant scrum with the tackles and turnovers that they made inside the 22, they matched us there, so it was physical.

“I don’t think they came out second best on the physicality. Had they scored in the last four minutes then there was a kickoff and the match was on. No, we were dominant in the scrum but all over the game there was dominance from there, in the scraps on the ground, in the breakdown. So certainly not a perfect performance.

“You guys asked us all week about getting a monkey off our back and revenge and it is not revenge. When you play a team like this you just want to fix something and try and beat them. We took the scrums because they were down to seven [forwards] and they had the lock out with the red card and Baird got injured as well. We could have taken those three points and extended the lead when they were 14. We stuck in there. If I just say we were totally dominant that is not true.”