THE BOKS BURST out of the blocks in Pretoria and Ireland were left chasing for the rest of the game.
It was a pursuit in vain. Andy Farrell’s side never led the Test at Loftus Versfeld.
The Ireland head coach was honest in the aftermath and he had cause to be disappointed with how they were beaten. Upon review, Farrell’s men will feel that all three tries they conceded were avoidable.
The Springboks appeared to catch Ireland off guard with their desire to move the ball wide. Ireland knew that new attack coach Tony Brown would be driving this team in a new direction but it was hard to predict it being just this different so early in his time with the South Africans.
Their opening flurry of attack yielded a brilliant try for left wing Kurt-Lee Arendse and meant Ireland were playing catch-up on the scoreboard from as early as the third minute.
Ireland have kicked into the Boks’ half and after a slow ruck five metres inside their own half, South Africa are in a position from where they virtually always would have kicked before.
Ireland’s body language and defensive set-up suggest they feel a kick is coming.
Scrum-half Craig Casey [yellow above] has dropped off the frontline, while Ireland have Jamie Osborne, James Lowe, and Jack Crowley in the backfield off-screen, ready to deal with a kick.
Ireland don’t have a huge amount of width in their frontline as a result [red above], with just 10 players in it and tackler Tadhg Furlong staying on the ground to avoid the danger of an offside penalty.
Even as the ball goes back to Boks out-half Handré Pollard, Ireland are probably expecting the kind of contestable kick they’ve seen so often from South Africa in the past but from that deep position, Pollard instead flashes a pass to his right.
So straight away, Ireland are into a scramble as Damian de Allende shifts the ball onto flanker Pieter-Steph du Toit.
As Lowe closes up from the Irish backfield, du Toit has the pace to get beyond Bundee Aki’s tackle attempt on the stretch. Lowe tackles him but du Toit pulls off a brilliant one-handed offload inside, another illustration of the Boks’ change in approach.
Du Toit has no other option in this instance as he heads towards the touchline but South Africa made 16 offloads in this Test, a huge increase on their offloading numbers before Brown came in.
They passed the ball 175 times on Saturday, another massive increase on their previous numbers, and it’s a string of slick passes that shreds Ireland on the next phase.
Again, Ireland seem to be taken aback by what’s coming at them. In truth, their defence is disorganised on this next phase. Ireland have just had to scramble back, of course, but they would have expected a much better response on the next phase.
Allowing an attacking side to make a string of six passes from a wide ruck is not something that teams as good as Ireland accept.
Boks hooker Bongi Mbonambi playing a sweep passe out the back is certainly a relatively new picture from the Boks, Pollard then shifting the ball wide to fullback Willie le Roux, who finds centre Jesse Kriel running into space.
Ireland will likely be frustrated with their lack of width in defence, with the first two passes from Faf de Flerk and Mbonambi essentially taking six defenders out of the equation close to the ruck.
In fact, Josh van der Flier is the widest defender in the Irish frontline defence and he is inside the midpoint of the pitch, as we see below.
This underlines just how narrow Ireland are in the frontline and it seems that they are in two minds as to whether they’re going to come forward with true linespeed or sit off and work more of a drift to cover this next phase of the attack.
Indeed, right wing Calvin Nash has completely dropped off the Irish frontline despite Osborne and Crowley still being in the backfield.
The poor TV angles mean it’s hard for us to see perfectly, but the shot below shows how Nash is completely disconnected from van der Flier having held back, meaning Kriel has huge space to run into.
Had Ireland all been on the same page, Nash might have been up on the right edge of the frontline defence and with a little more width in the line inside, might even have shut down the Springboks’ passing on Kriel.
But Nash seems to be in ‘jockey’ or drift mode, not racing up aggressively to try and shut the ball down.
In reality, Ireland never really get all-out linespeed on here, even though Furlong and then van der Flier make efforts to stop the ball. Furlong seems to identify Mbonambi’s sweep pass early.
But we can see that he hesitates briefly before accelerating forward onto Pollard.
That means Pollard has enough time to catch and pass to le Roux.
Van der Flier also tries to shut down the ball but can’t get to le Roux in time.
Initially, the lack of width in Ireland’s defence means van der Flier has to worry about le Roux passing to prop Frans Malherbe at the front door.
By the time the pass is gone out the back door, it’s too late for van der Flier to adjust out onto le Roux and stop him with the ball.
Ireland have been skirted and with the Boks having done an excellent job of holding attacking width, Farrell’s men are in trouble.
Let’s reiterate the credit the Boks are due here – their pass quality combined with their width and depth make this hard to defend. Still, Ireland defence coach Simon Easterby will have been disappointed that it wasn’t managed in a sharper, more cohesive fashion.
Kriel sprints forward into space and while Caelan Doris is scrambling across from a starting position inside van der Flier, he can’t get a hand on him.
As we see above, Kriel is therefore able to threaten the retreating Nash’s inside shoulder, tying Nash up before he passes to Siya Kolisi.
The catch-pass from Kolisi as Crowley closes up on him at speed is superb. The Boks captained carried powerfully in this game but it’s his skill level that impresses here.
And now the danger man Arendse has space in front of him with Nash struggling to get out and Osborne scrambling across from the left-hand side of the backfield.
Nash isn’t able to catch up so it’s the kind of nightmare situation that Osborne would have hoped to avoid on his return to the fullback position after such a long absence.
He might want to use the touchline in his favour, showing Arendse the outside and trying to force him into touch before he can finish but the Boks wing is lightning-quick and already close to full speed. There’s no guarantee with that option.
So Osborne continues to close at high speed, leaving him susceptible to that vicious Arendse step back on the inside. It would have been a brilliant tackle from Osborne to stop Arendse here and Ireland will be disappointed their inexperienced fullback was left in such a tough spot. Again, we should stress the brilliance of Arendse’s work here. It’s a searing finish.
Ireland will have been frustrated that their second try concession also featured a brief lack of mental clarity.
Ireland have just conceded a scrum penalty and 20 seconds elapse before Pollard kicks for touch but even still, Ireland’s aren’t ideally set up.
Lowe’s job here is to try and keep the ball in play, denying the Springboks an attacking lineout, and the job of the players around him is to be ready to claim the ball if he manages to keep it in.
As soon as it’s clear that Pollard is going to kick down Ireland’s left, fullback Ciarán Frawley [red] will probably feel he should have been working up closer to Lowe and the touchline in case Lowe can keep the ball in.
Frawley still has time to get nearer to Lowe after Pollard’s kick but he pauses, seemingly thinking the ball will find touch. Scrum-half Conor Murray [pink] and centre Aki [yellow] seem to be of the same mind and briefly pause their movement towards Lowe. The one man who keeps sprinting towards the ball is Springboks wing Cheslin Kolbe [black].
Lowe flicks the ball back infield and as it bounces, Kolbe nips in to hack it forward, hurdle Frawley – who falls as he attempts to get a hand to the ball – and follow up for the finish.
It’s brilliant work from Kolbe, who chases so many lost causes with no reward, but Ireland should be frustrated at their comparatively sleepy reaction.
They know Lowe attempts this kind of thing near the touchline regularly, so being ready to claim the scraps is important. It’s outstanding work from Kolbe but a relatively soft seven points to concede in a game of this level.
Of course, this incident involved a TMO review to assess whether Lowe had put a foot down in touch before releasing the ball infield but there were no angles that clearly showed that was the case. Therefore, the onfield decision of a try was upheld.
Lowe makes an error to give the Springboks the position for their third try, dropping a South African restart back over his own tryline just after a brilliant Ireland try has drawn them back to 20-15 with time to find a winner.
Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s kick is too long but Lowe tries to field it.
Lowe spills the ball into his in-goal area and though he attempts to recover, Kolbe is chasing all-out again and blocks his kick.
If Lowe leaves the ball rather than attempting to catch the restart, there’s a good chance it goes dead and Ireland would have a scrum back on halfway, a prime attacking chance as they go after a winning converted try. Of course, there’s a chance the ball bounces awkwardly and Lowe looks foolish for leaving it but that seems less likely.
So instead, it’s a five-metre scrum to South Africa and the rest is history.
It’s complete domination from the Springboks’ scrum to march Ireland over their tryline and earn a penalty try to seal their win.
Ireland scrum coach John Fogarty and his players will review their effort with a critical lense, of course. The Boks are brilliant scrummagers but being driven over your own tryline is still rare at this level of rugby. Ireland must figure out why it happened.
So there are regrets about the error that left Ireland in this position but also their response to it.
Ireland need to be sharper if they’re going to level the series in Durban this Saturday.
