Sporting Advent Calendar #22: So many positives for Irish rugby in a fruitful autumn

“You don’t have to be perfect. Your attitude and mental resolve have to be perfect. It’s very hard to play a perfect game of rugby but you have to strive towards it.”

So said Paul O'Connell the day before Ireland beat South Africa 29-15.

Pick your November moments.

Schmidt, so clearly, finding an anecdote to Victor Matfield’s “slow poison.”

Jack McGrath racing around to spoil his supposedly impenetrable lineout maul.

The mostly impenetrable Irish defence.

Jonathan Sexton’s flawlessness.

Rhys Ruddock’s try when cutting clean through the Bok heart.

A training ground try, two phases after a scrum, with Conor Murray reversing play to trick Bryan Habana.

Schmidt wondering why the ball needed to bounce; could Murray not have found Tommy Bowe’s hands?

McGrath’s 17 tackles.

Comfortably defeating South Africa despite a dodgy scrum and lineout.

Being unhappy about it afterwards.

Rob Kearney’s continuing ability to soar, Robbie Henshaw’s arrival.

All change for Georgia. A 49-7 victory.

The Wallabies and Michael Cheika.

Simon Zebo’s try.

Simon Zebo’s 10 tackles.

Bowe’s intercept try.

Nick Phipps’s two tries.

Madness, exhilarating madness.

Sexton finally missing a kick.

Sexton’s nerveless 64th minute penalty for the 26-23 win or, even better, Sexton’s 43rd minute penalty sending Ireland in level at half-time.

Sexton, his value, providing further confirmation that Irish success at the World Cup weighs more heavily on his shoulders than any player to come before.

And yet, Ian Madigan’s impressive cameos.

O’Connell’s tackle on Ben McCallum.

Peter O’Mahony’s tackling of everyone else.

Jamie Heaslip’s constancy.

The collective’s refusal to break at the death.

Or perhaps, best of all, the humility heard in O’Connell’s response to Ireland rising to third in the IRB rankings: “We’ve been in this situation before and it didn’t serve us well.”

2015 will not be 2007. Of this we can be confident.