Andy Farrell has wanted as many difficulties and demands as possible thrown at him, his staff and his players, and having been head coach of two squads with 50 players for games on successive days, even he sounded a little bunched. Weary all right, but contented too.
Paul O’Connell had foretold that this predictably bruising meeting with the Springboks would tell us much about this team. In Farrell’s view, it certainly did tell him “a lot”, adding: “that we’ve got resilience, guts, character. We wanted the test, we wanted the different type of Test match that was a proper old-fashioned slinging match. We wanted to see where we are at in that regard. I thought the character of the side was immense for all sorts of reasons.
“You start coming into camp and a lot of them being underdone as far as minutes are concerned and this being our first game of the season – it’s some of the lads’ first game of the season and others haven’t played for three or four weeks. They come into camp every single time and get to work and they certainly fill me with confidence every time.
“You would think that Hugo [Keenan] and Jamison [Gibson-Park] had been playing for the last five or six weeks and that’s because of the culture, the attitude, the want to get better time and again that is infectious day-in and day-out with this squad. I thought we showed fantastic spirit.
“Having said that. South Africa are a hell of a side and it could have gone either way, so the character that we showed was fitting for the 12 days that we have had together and with the injuries that we had: one or two before the match and the Ireland ‘A’ game made for a different 10 days for us and something we adapted to. I’m unbelievably proud of them in how they applied themselves.
Noting the confidence their pack earned from holding up four attempted Boks catch-and-drives inside the Irish 22 stood to them for the remainder of the game and filtered through to the rest of the performance.
“Our set-piece was unbelievable. Coming out of that, our defence was immense. The backs complemented the forwards in that as well. It was a proper Test match either way. If the result had gone against us I would have felt the same way.”
The win was made all the more meritorious given the toll of the first half, which saw Ireland lose Stuart McCloskey, Conor Murray and Tadhg Furlong.
“Stu is a funny one,” said Farrell. “He fell awkwardly on the floor and his arm twisted in a way and he thought something serious had happened, but it doesn’t look as serious at this moment in time. There’s a bit of feeling that’s coming back into his arm and hand. We’ll see how that progresses, we don’t quite know.
“Tadhg Furlong just jarred his ankle, he doesn’t seem to be too serious. Conor felt his groin when he made that break.”
It looked like Johnny Sexton might follow early in the second half after almost being cut in two by Damian de Allende’s tackle, but having picked himself up the captain – seizing the moment as ever – opted for the corner with the score just 6-6. He was vindicated by the maul try grounded by Josh van der Flier, albeit he later revealed he had a dead leg and perhaps that was a part of his rationale.
As a one-off win it ranked on his long list.
“Obviously right up there. We spoke about it being a massive test for us before the game and you can’t say different after it. We didn’t play our best rugby but that’s also a very pleasing thing. Maybe a few years ago we would have crumbled or not shown the guts we did there.
“It was very pleasing for lots of reasons. Like Faz said, the guys coming in for their first game of the season and some lads had barely played but they trained very well during a mad old week with nearly 50 players knocking about. It was unique but they are the tests that he has been putting us under in New Zealand and now this week.”
Needless to say, this Test was as physical as any Sexton has played in.
“It always is against them. They test you in ways not many teams do. Even France are the closest, but South Africa are pretty big men across the park, pretty powerful, fast, so we stood up to them well at times. The boys just kept fronting up, the pack were outstanding and the centres, some of their ‘D’ was amazing.
“We gritted it out, and that’s a very pleasing thing to say after playing South Africa.”
The game was notable for Jimmy O’Brien winning a memorable first cap on the day Murray earned his 100th.
“His versatility is pretty unique,” Sexton said of O’Brien. “He’s played 10 for Leinster as well, he’s a fantastic footballer. We thought he wasn’t fazed, but he told us he was s******g it after the game. He came on and was straight into it.
“He knew what was going on, he knew everything, he just did his role very well. Fair play to him, most people get their first cap in a smaller game, he gets it against the world champions. What an amazing performance from him.
“I was gutted for Conor, he was really good for the 30 minutes and had to come off with an injury on his 100th cap, but he can be unbelievably proud of the milestone.”
