Irish fall in foul-tempered finale

To the backdrop of an arrogant Afrikaaner crowd in Loftus Versfeld, the Irish safari ended with a predictably fractious and fragmented finale. You had to admire Ireland's defiance, if not their rugby. They met fire with a volcano and then bade good luck and good riddance to South Africa.

Perhaps it was a game too far. Prepared for the first hint of battle, they went to war. After a month of being dismissed at every turn, at having little obstacles constantly put in their way; heck after just living inside a bubble, which in turn was inside a bubble of a country, one could understand where their defiance came from.

Keith Wood was clearly targeted before the game and during it, and the Irish were not going to roll over and die. Wood himself is no shrinking violet, but it was a relief to see him take the sneering laughs of his opponents and the crowd a few minutes from the end to pick himself up and finish the match. Wild horses wouldn't have dragged him off and given the locals that undoubted pleasure.

One imagines that back home there was a certain amount of admiration for Ireland's fighting spirit - a cliche readily applied on this day of all days - if mixed with a degree of shame.

Watching the game with the naked eye from just one vantage point was hardly adequate - you needed ten eyes and ten vantage points to keep abreast of the scuffles which broke out regularly off the ball as play continued. The touch judges came on more as policemen than referee's assistants. Come to think of it, NATO would have been better employed that Messrs Morrison and Mene.

The three officials cannot be happy with their own displays. That no one was sent-off is an indictment on them. From the moment Joel Dume issued a yellow card with indecent haste to Joost van der Westhuizen when he kicked a prostrate Malcolm O'Kelly after 13 minutes, they had lost control.

It was a nasty, scurrulous act by the cold-eyed van der Westhuizen, which would have merited a dismissal in any sport (even kickboxing). One can't help but feel that any member of the Irish side and even most of the Springboks would have been dismissed for the same act. Van der Westhuizen wasn't because of who he is.

Monsieur Dume abrogated his responsibilities and took the easy option of the yellow card - shown up for the useless cop-out that it is. It was the game's defining moment, and lit the torch for everything that followed.

But Nick Mallett's defence of his scrum-half afterwards, claiming O'Kelly should have been penalised and yellow-carded (!) for playing van der Westhuizen without the ball, was defending the indefensible. "I'm not excusing it," he said, having excused it.

Equally risible was his claim that every foul act committed by his Springbok shrinking violets was borne out of Ireland's frustrating tactics. He was excusing, among others, van der West huizen, Pieter Muller, whose dangerously head-high hit on Eric Elwood on the video replay screen met with howls of laughter, and James "Bullet" Dalton, whose flurry of punches to a prostrate Victor Costello generated the same reaction. In the case of Dalton and Costello, Costello was reacting to Dalton obstructing him off the ball.

Gary Teichmann brought a lump to the throat as well when admitting that "maybe we were a bit ill-tempered in a way but, as Nick said, it was borne out of frustration". And with that they left, Mallett sarcastically saying "good luck with them (the Irish)", before polishing their haloes on the way out.

In fairness, Mallett and Teichmann were perhaps fearful that the Irish management were about to start citing several Bokkies. This followed cloak and dagger-like scenes in the spacious corridor outside the dressingrooms, where the Boks' assistant coach Alan Solomons attempted to thrash out a peace accord with Donal Lenihan.

Hence, Mallett was getting his retaliation in first to a dutifully loyal and fawning South African press corps. But it has to be said that there was more than some truth to his words.

A less forthcoming Warren Gatland was also being a little disingenuous when claiming "we were here to play rugby" and, citing his own disciplinary code, added: "Paddy (Johns) was severely remprimanded for ill-discipline last week." It didn't exactly show.

No less than van der Westhuizen, Dalton and Teichmann, and Johns, who should have been setting an example, Costello and, when they came on, Trevor Brennan and Peter Clohessy, lost the plot. The introduction of Brennan and Clohessy, and the way they went about their business from the moment they arrived, hardly suggested that the Irish management were seeking to cool things down. That said, Clohessy's locking of the Springboks late five-metre scrum typified his resilience on tour.

Clohessy made the point afterwards that "even up until two years ago, that was the type of game we would have lost by 60 points". A fair point, too. Though, against that, we might have scored a try or two. There wasn't a hint of one here, and so the promise of that six-try opener against Boland hasn't been fulfilled (there have been just five tries in six games since).

In a constructive sense, no one played particularly well, save perhaps for the excellent Paul Wallace and Malcolm O'Kelly. Missed penalties to touch and some overcooked throwing by Wood betrayed the collective loss of control, and prevented Ireland from establishing any foothold on the game, particularly in an utterly lop-sided first half. The Boks should have been 30-plus ahead by half-time, and that the final margin was a mere 33 was a minor blessing, even taking into account some truly brave last-ditch tackling and a fine second-half exercise in damage limitation.

The scrum was Ireland's only area of supremacy. In every other area they were inferior. The backrow were obliterated by the brilliance of Andre Venter, primarily, and Teichmann and Johan Erasmus, while the back-line didn't count. Not unexpectedly, the Boks opted for more shortened lineouts, and unleashed van der Westhuizen, Smith and the backrow to run at Ireland with almost bewildering continuity, offloading in the tackle in the certainty of support runners arriving at pace.

When the Boks raised the tempo and the intensity, Ireland were left gasping. Ireland may have given more than they got, and even won the fight, but the Springboks played all the rugby, and some of it was marvellous.

The 35th minute move off a shortened line-out which saw Venter carve through and the everdangerous Franco Smith and Andre Snyman continue the move for Erasmus to score was to see them putting into practice what they had been doing in practice two weeks beforehand. Practice perfect indeed.

The pick of their five tries was the last, Pieter Rossouw providing the cutting edge to a marvellous, sustained bout of rucking, passing and support play. In contrast to Ireland, Scotland have looked far more constructive on tour and it was impossible to quibble with Mallett's assertion that "Ireland never looked remotely like scoring".

What this Ireland learn from this game depends on their reaction in the cold light of day. The reality is that they were lucky to get nil by half-time, and only marginally more lucky to get nil by full-time. A couple of close-in lineout drives, met by an impenetrable Bok rock, and then an attempt to move it wide met with a predictable failure to recycle it.

A suspicion lurks that wonderful squad spirit though they have, the young team management may be almost too close to the squad. Nevertheless, Judgement Day 2 later in the year will be, er, interesting. At a frosty post-match reception, Teichmann vowed: "We're looking forward to going to Ireland in November." To which an Irish player retorted: "So are we."

Then the squad and management went up to the front of the room, formed a tight-knit circle, and gave a rousing rendition of "it's a long, long way from Clare to here" as their parting shot.

Defiant to the end.

Scoring sequence: 17 min, van der Westhuizen try, 5-0; 35 min, Erasmus try, Montgomery con, 12-0; 39 min, Dalton try, Montgomery con, 19-0; 66 min, Teichmann try, Montgomery con, 26-0; 77 min, Rossouw try, Montgomery con, 33-0.

SOUTH AFRITerblanche, A Snyman, P Muller, P Rossouw; F Smith, J van der Westhuizen; O le Roux. J Dalton, A Garvey, K Otto, M Andrews, J Erasmus, G Teichmann (captain), A Venter. Replacements: M Hendricks for Terblanche (45 min), R Kempson for le Roux (55 min), N Drotske for Dalton (64 min), W Swanepoel for van der Westhuizen (75 min), A Aitken for Erasmus (75 min).

IRELAND: C O'Shea (London Irish); J Bishop (London Irish), K Maggs (Bristol), M McCall (London Irish), D Hickie (St Mary's); E Elwood (Galwegians), C McGuinness (St Mary's); J Fitzpatrick (London Irish), K Wood (Harlequins), P Wallace (Saracens), M O'Kelly (London Irish), P Johns (Saracens, captain), D O'Cuinneagain (Sale), V Costello (St Mary's), A Ward (Ballynahinch). Replacements: R Henderson (Wasps) for Hickie (40 min), D Humphreys (Dungannon) for Elwood (21-24 min, 38-42 mins and 52 min), T Brennan (St Mary's) for Costello (53 min), P Clohessy (Young Munster) for Fitzpatrick (64 min).

Referee: Joel Dume (France).