Along with Jamie Heaslip from last Saturday's starting XV, Andrew Trimble is the only survivor who played in the tour opener seven summers ago against the All Blacks when Ireland were first reduced to 14 men on the back off Heaslip's dismissal and then to 13 when Ronan O'Gara was sin-binned.
The contrast between what happened that night in New Plymouth and last Saturday could not have been more extreme. The All Blacks turned the screw with 21 points, while Ireland were down to 13 men and ultimately ran in nine tries in a 66-28 win.
Even Trimble is at a loss to explain the difference. “I really don’t know what it is but something clicked and we had a lot of pride in what we were playing for. We dug in there and were pretty stubborn at times. There’s thin margins between being able to produce that and not being able to produce that.”
Trimble also admitted that their achievement in becoming the first Ireland team to win on South African soil and against such odds “maybe hasn’t sunk in just yet.”
Reflecting on the fall-out from CJ Stander’s red card, he added: “You kinda think ‘right, let’s hold on here for as long as we can and get to half-time.’ And we were just fighting it out with each other and showing massive character, but you wonder how long this can go on for.
“Then, all of sudden, you just continue to re-produce that character phase-in and phase-out, defensively and with ball in hand; everybody working really hard for each other. Get to 60, 70, 75 minutes and you think ‘there’s a chance we are going to win this’. We got over the line and made a bit of history. Yeah, just a very, very special day.”
Stint at flanker
Trimble’s stint at flanker also gave him ample opportunity to indulge in his dry-as-a-bone wit. “Think I’ll stick to the day job for now. It was some experience, right enough, but I think I’d rather leave it there.”
Given Keith Earls’s dad, Ger, was reckoned to be the finest flanker never to be picked by Ireland, one might have presumed Ireland’s other winger would have volunteered for the task, to which Trimble retorted with a chuckle: “I’ve a small bit of pedigree as well with my dad being a terrible flanker! I think he [Earls] did [volunteer]. I was keen to get him in the scrum when the scrum was on the left – I was more comfortable on the other side of the pitch – but word came from the touchline that I had to make my way across.”
Trimble could also indulge in claiming the credit for Ireland’s one scrum penalty.
“Reddser [Eoin Reddan] was giving me a hard time afterwards. All the clueless backs like myself [normally] come running in saying ‘well done, boys!’ I was there, taking the credit,” said Trimble, laughing. “Like I had anything to do with it all happening! Yeah, happy days.”
Meeting
Trimble said Ireland parked their historic win at a meeting on Sunday night “and looked at defensively what we were doing well and one or two things we could do a bit better”.
“When they’re hurting a little bit more there’s potentially even more of a fear factor, because they’re fighting for their lives as well. I’m sure they’re getting a hard time.
“I’m sure they’re going to look at their performance and identify a few areas that they can improve on. I think we’re going to face a massive backlash and we need to get better.”
Furthermore, Ireland now have a bigger prize at stake in seeking to become the first Irish squad to win a series in South Africa, something which took the All Blacks six attempts, while the Lions have only managed it four times in 13 tours, the French twice in seven tours and in the case of England and Australia, never once five tours' apiece.
“There’s a reason why they’ve struggled because it’s really, really difficult to do and for us to go out there again we need to produce another massive performance.
“Physically we need to be switched on, mentally we need to be switched on.
“Last week’s gone now. Certainly we enjoyed getting a few pats on the back but we’ve got another job to do now and it’s pretty exciting to be in a position to create another bit of history.”
