Ireland were chasing a first series win in South Africa but could still make history in Port Elizabeth next weekend.
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Joe Schmidt said Ireland failed to cope with a second-half “onslaught” from South Africa in today’s second Test as the Springboks powered from 26-10 down to win 32-26 and tie the series at Ellis Park.
Debutant Ruan Combrinck sparked the comeback before Warren Whiteley, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Damian de Allende all went over to rescue home hopes.
“The players are certainly disappointed”, Schmidt said. They’re fairly exhausted in that changing room.
“What we always say to all the debutants is you’ve got to relax and enjoy it especially this next 24 hours, there’s something really special about the build-up to an global, the nerves, the butterflies, everything that goes with it and you’ve got to enjoy that. It will be another really, really tough Test match”.
Captain Rory Best is urging his side not to get too carried away with the nature of their defeat as he emphasised that it is still all to play for at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium next Saturday with the series level at 1-1. Now, we have an opportunity to win a Test series which is unbelievably hard to do.
For the first 60 minutes we were physical and kept going at them.
“Ellis Park, doesn’t get much bigger, but also you don’t get much more of an opportunity for those guys to lay down a marker themselves and, I think to a man, they’ve all stepped up this week when they found out that they were selected and hopefully we’ll see the type of response from those guys who are coming in to back up what was done by the lads who did start last week”.
“But it’s something that we know as a squad and a team that that’s what makes you stronger, it’s learning from that and knowing that, if we get ourselves in that position next week, we don’t make the same errors we did this week. That’s probably the big driver this week, that it’s going to take a phenomenal performance to win here”.
“We needed to get that ruthless mindset to get points on the board”.
It was widely reported in the build up that new South African coach Allister Coetzee wants his players to play their instincts and favours a game played by the Chiefs in Super Rugby.
In particular, local heroes Combrinck and Whiteley had a major influence in turning the game in their side’s favour.
“As I said earlier, we’re under no illusions that combination will be a lot more of a threat this week because they would have had a little bit more time together”.
“One of our core values is resilience and that showed”.
“They really did take it to us and we weren’t quite up the task”.
“The impact from the bench was massive”. This team is not about 15 players, but rather all 23.
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“We take confidence from what we achieved last week but we know that this is a different track, a different match and I’m sure we’re going to face a different Springboks side as well”.
