Ireland are likely to be without Dan Sheehan, who suffered a knee injury during Ireland’s 27-20 defeat to South Africa at Loftus Versfeld, for next Saturday’s second Test in Durban, while centre Robbie Henshaw and scrumhalf Craig Casey are also doubtful.
Andrew Porter suffered a hand injury but returned to the pitch, while debutant and try scorer Jamie Osborne suffered a blow to the leg. The 22-year-old fullback remained confident that he would be available. Bundee Aki was limping too in a dressing room that felt the full physical rigours of a gladiatorial contest.
Ireland coach Andy Farrell said of Casey: “He’s concussed. He was still on the trolley when I came in at the end so obviously it was concerning enough but he was up and walking around, not quite himself, yet but he’s up and about and wondering what’s going on.”
Farrell was unhappy with the first half performance but felt that after the interval the intensity and cohesiveness improved. “In the cold light of day, I thought South Africa deserved to win the game so congratulations to them.
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“First half, I thought we were off. I thought we gave away access for them to be able to play their game. Defensively, we were a bit passive, certainly for the first try but then the story of the game for me, after some words at half-time, I thought it was courageous the way we defended and got ourselves back into the game.
“In fact, it’s the make-up of this team and history would say it, that even with the type of performance in the first half, we hung in there; we don’t go away. There are plenty of teams that would have been under the pump in the first half like that and then seen the game run away fromthem in the second half.
“We didn’t. We stayed in the fight and could’ve, would’ve, should’ve [won] with some decisions that rightly or wrongly, didn’t go our way. I suppose the main thing is that we want to attack the game the way we want to do it, not being desperate next week just because we’ve lost this week.
“I think discipline cost us, the penalty count wasn’t outrageous but the way we put pressure on ourselves, relieved pressure for them is what we need to address. There’s some great learnings from the first half that we put right in the second half, we weren’t clinical enough when we had chances on the Springboks line.
“You’ve got to convert in big games like this, there’s no doubt about that. We were still in the game and that says to you we still have a chance.”
Ireland can feel aggrieved with a couple of television match official Ben Whitehouse’s calls that had a sizeable bearing on the outcome, but Farrell said that they’d seek dialogue through the accepted channels. He did suggest: “I saw quite a few of them live and I had a dubious thought about it but that’s life, isn’t it?
“We’ll go through the right channels and make sure we do things properly. Lucky, unlucky? That’s the game.”
The Ireland coach was asked about James Lowe’s effort to keep the ball in play which he did acrobatically only for Springbok wing Cheslin Kolbe to pick Irish pockets and get to the loose possession first, hack the ball on and score a try.
“Well, I was more disappointed. It was a special play by Kolbe, to chase that ball. It’s one of the reasons they won the world cup, with him chasing down the kicker in France, but we were slack in not backing James up.
“You’ll make your own decision on whether he still had the ball in his right hand or whether the ball hit him as he threw the ball back into the field and his foot was in touch. That’s for us all to debate,” he said after a TMO review adjudicated that he had kept the ball alive rather than put his foot in touch.
Springbok head coach Rassie Erasmus was happy but not satisfied. “Overall, the goal was achieved but it was far from a perfect performance,” he said.
“Ireland are a team we’ve had zero success against since [we took over in] 2018 and the next worst record is against New Zealand – which is a 50 per cent record – and they’ve really had our number. And there were instances where they came back so strongly and if they didn’t have one or two big injuries the game would have been much tighter.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a monkey off our back but it’s a really good competitive opponent, who are number two in the world, and any day they can step up and beat you and be number one.”
‘Bok captain Siya Kolisi said he was pleased with the result but cautioned that the series remained very much alive. “Of course, this game was very important for us,” he said. “We haven’t beaten them since 2016, so it was special for our confidence. But the job is not done yet. We want to win the series and we know they are going to come back harder.
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