IRELAND PULLED OFF one of the biggest results in the country’s rugby history this evening.
But skipper Rory Best isn’t getting carried away.
Joe Schmidt’s side ran out 26-20 winners at Newlands Stadium despite CJ Stander’s first-half dismissal.
Advertisement
“We knew to come here and get a victory was going to be unbelievably tough and would take a massive physical performance,” Best said afterwards, “not just from the forwards but from the entire team and the subs coming on.
“We dug really, really deep to get that win. It was really tough. There’s a lot of tired boys that are running on empty now and the euphoria of the win. But credit the Springboks, they’re a really tough side, they put it up to us throughout the game. Thankfully, we were able to dig deep and get the win.”
After Stander’s controversial red card, the sides went in level at the break. Conor Murray then scored a try within two minutes of the restart.
“We were happy to just keep going at them,” said Best of their half-time tactical chat. “I think if we sat back and kept giving the Springboks the room they were going to keep coming at us and we’d run out of steam.
“We knew we had to take the game to them and hold the ball as much as we could. And credit to the boys who did that; the half backs ran the game really really well for us and like I saw there was a couple of boys come off the bench for us towards the end and had a massive impact and got us across the line.”
Ireland will now go for a series-clinching win in Ellis Park next week.
“The Boks an awesome side,” said Devin Toner. “We really needed to knuckle down and thankfully we did that.
“We did a lot of homework. All of our coaches put in a huge amount of work. I think Andy [Farrell] coming in has added new dimension to it. But I think just the amount of homework that we did, it came through for us.”
Rory Best: 'We dug really, really deep to get that win'
IRELAND PULLED OFF one of the biggest results in the country’s rugby history this evening.
But skipper Rory Best isn’t getting carried away.
Joe Schmidt’s side ran out 26-20 winners at Newlands Stadium despite CJ Stander’s first-half dismissal.
“We knew to come here and get a victory was going to be unbelievably tough and would take a massive physical performance,” Best said afterwards, “not just from the forwards but from the entire team and the subs coming on.
“We dug really, really deep to get that win. It was really tough. There’s a lot of tired boys that are running on empty now and the euphoria of the win. But credit the Springboks, they’re a really tough side, they put it up to us throughout the game. Thankfully, we were able to dig deep and get the win.”
After Stander’s controversial red card, the sides went in level at the break. Conor Murray then scored a try within two minutes of the restart.
“We knew we had to take the game to them and hold the ball as much as we could. And credit to the boys who did that; the half backs ran the game really really well for us and like I saw there was a couple of boys come off the bench for us towards the end and had a massive impact and got us across the line.”
Ireland will now go for a series-clinching win in Ellis Park next week.
“The Boks an awesome side,” said Devin Toner. “We really needed to knuckle down and thankfully we did that.
“We did a lot of homework. All of our coaches put in a huge amount of work. I think Andy [Farrell] coming in has added new dimension to it. But I think just the amount of homework that we did, it came through for us.”
Red card be damned! Incredible Irish effort earns first-ever win in South Africa
Ireland start second half as they mean to go on with Conor Murray try
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Devin Toner Due South Rory Best Rugby South Africa Springboks