If this had been a track race then Ireland would have run out of gas with the finish line in sight, and the sound of the Springboks eating up the metres behind them. And the crowd, who themselves had gone through a dramatic emotional swing, were on their feet singing a different tune to the one at half-time when they had been hollering abuse at their team.
It went from an ordinary enough Test match, in which the Boks picked up where they left off in Cape Town with a clatter of mistakes, to a gripping story of the hunter and the hunted. Had Ireland hung on then it would have been their first series win south of the equator since Australia in 1979. Instead they go to Port Elizabeth with a mental and physical battle on their hands. Technically at 1-1 it’s all to play for, but it will not feel like that for the tourists. “They delivered an onslaught that we didn’t quite match up to,” Joe Schmidt said. “We weren’t able to make those tackles. The result was well and truly warranted by the South African ball carriers and we weren’t quite up to the task. And that was incredibly disappointing when we were 26-10 up going into the final quarter and 19-3 up at half-time.”
Rory Best rejected the idea that playing at altitude had drained them in the last quarter – the South Africa coach, Allister Coetzee, thought differently – and the theme was carried on by Schmidt, who must have revisited in his mind the day when the All Blacks overtook his team on the line in 2013.
“It will take us a couple of days to get over the anguish mentally of surrendering the lead like that and start building towards next week’s Test match,” the coach said. Robbie Henshaw is the man most likely to be unavailable for that after being helped off with a knee injury. The centre had played his part in a defensive performance that shut down the South Africans for an hour.
Aside from giving too much latitude to Faf de Klerk, bouncing off the back of rucks, Ireland were all over the Boks, and mixed holding them up for turnovers with stripping them in the tackle. Their set piece was also very good, with the tighthead Tadhg Furlong really effective. And unlike Elton Jantjies, Paddy Jackson was on the money with his kicking. His fifth success from as many attempts was the conversion of Devin Toner’s try, the only touchdown of the first half.
Ireland’s policy was to play maybe two phases and then bomb the wing Lwazi Mvovo. It was a regular source of pain to the home side and opened the door for Toner’s try six minutes before the break. Mvovo was called ashore at the interval. “The work rate was terrible in the first half and I told them that in no uncertain terms at half-time,” Coetzee said. “It was much better in the second half. We wanted to use altitude as an advantage and take Ireland to a place they hadn’t been before in the last 20 minutes.”
They certainly did that. And it was an express journey. Ruan Combrinck and Warren Whiteley came on for the second half, and both scored. And their other big carriers, Damian de Allende and Pieter-Steph du Toit, both scored as well. The critical passage for Ireland came in the last quarter, not long after they had seemingly put out the fire with a Jamie Heaslip try in almost immediate response to Combrinck’s effort. Just three minutes later the door was opened for Whiteley and Ireland suddenly were staggering around.
When they were done for crossing, on what was their only attack of the last 20 minutes, 25 metres from the South Africa line, they went into free fall, with the replacements unable to do anything useful to hold it all together. Rather, the set piece crumbled and the Boks looked like men possessed. Clearly Coetzee has quota restrictions on his selections but he did not allude to that in praising the group who had turned it all around.
“To come back against a quality Irish side shows what we have here,” he said. “I think it’s a special group of players. Resilience is one of our core values. And we have impact from the bench.” Ireland could have done with the last bit.
South Africa Le Roux; Pietersen, Mapoe, De Allende, Mvovo (Combrinck ht); Jantjies, De Klerk; Mtawarira (Mbonami 51), Strauss (capt), Malherbe (Redelinghuys 47), Etzebeth, Du Toit, Louw, Kolosi (Mostert 67), Vermeulen (Whiteley ht)
Tries Combrinck, Whiteley, Du Toit, De Allende Pens Jantjies 2 Cons Jantjies 3.
Ireland Payne (O’Halloran 76); Trimble, Henshaw (Madigan 76), Olding, Gilroy; Jackson, Murray; McGrath (Kilcoyne 66), Best (capt; Strauss 65), Furlong (Bealham 61), Toner, Roux (Ryan 51), Henderson (Reidy 66), Ruddock, Heaslip
Tries Toner, Heaslip Con Jackson 2 Pen Jackson 4
Referee Angus Gardner (Australia) Match rating 8/10
