Boks scrummed Ireland off the Lansdowne Road park

Beaten six-love in the scrums, it was only some excellent tenacity in defence that saved Ireland from a far more brutal scoreline as the Springboks ended their Dublin drought with a 24-13 win at Lansdowne Road.

While the scoreline does suggest a fairly emphatic victory, the Springboks really should have won by more. Given that Ireland received a red card and four yellows, and were under sustained pressure in their own 22 for most of the second half, it was staggering the home side could have staged an astonishing comeback in the last few minutes.

Having been on attack for the last half hour, the Springboks’ defence was suddenly given an unexpected test, but stood up just as well as the opposition’s had.

The highlight of the South African performance was undoubtedly the scrummaging. Their demolition job on a much-vaunted Irish pack was astonishing; seldom has a Tier One nation been so utterly dominated at scrum time.

With lock James Ryan receiving a 20-minute red card, and Thomas du Toit, Boan Venter and Malcolm Marx having already established scrum dominance, coach Rassie Erasmus went for the kill just before halftime by bringing on some even bigger guns in Wilco Louw and Gerhard Steenekamp.

Having just conceded a soft try straight after they had crossed the line for a second time, the Springboks had a scrum against seven men in the red zone. Louw and Steenekamp immediately made their presence known, winning a penalty try that gave South Africa a 19-7 halftime lead.

The second half became even more fraught for Ireland in the set pieces with props Andrew Porter and Paddy McCarthy both yellow-carded for not being up to the challenge. The brilliant Springbok pack also hounded them in the lineouts, where the home side won just 73% of their own throws.

Given such dominance in those two key areas, the excellence of the South African performance is tarnished slightly by the reality that they were not ruthless enough. It was a day when their usually dazzling attack just didn’t quite fire, not helped by halfbacks Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Cobus Reinach both being off their best.

“I thought we were dominant in most parts of the game, but we just couldn’t kill it off inside their 22,” Erasmus later mused.

Ireland did not take a step backwards in defence despite the constant battering, and one can only salute their passion and commitment, however exposed they were technically. The Springboks were never given a free ride at the breakdowns and were also not able to impose their kicking game on Ireland, who were more accurate with the boot and better in the aerial contest.

It’s no wonder then that the world champions decided to go Route One to victory and attack the Irish where they were most vulnerable.

It may not have been as inspired a performance as the ones they produced in their other major victories this year in Wellington and Paris, but it was mightily effective.

Hooker Marx, named as the World Player of the Year after the win, was once again the major catalyst in the victory.

Unusually these days, referee Matthew Carley would also have been in line for the best performance of the match, handling the complete chaos of the second half in prudential fashion, ably assisted by his fellow officials, fellow Englishmen Karl Dickson, Christophe Ridley and TMO Andrew Jackson.

It was pleasing to see the card decisions handled with clarity and common sense, and South Africa’s obvious scrum dominance was rightly rewarded, but not always.

Among the other Springbok players, lock Ruan Nortje added to his strong portfolio of work all year with another ubiquitous display, added to his tremendous running of the lineout. Pieter-Steph du Toit showed his usual class, and eighthman Jasper Wiese was abrasive as ever. The backs did not have many opportunities to shine, but the centre pairing of Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel were a strong physical presence, and wings Cheslin Kolbe and Canan Moodie made some telling interventions.