Dawn Dunn: Ireland outplays Springboks

The Irish public and press were absolutely amazing in the week leading up to this test. The press all made a huge fuss out of the Boks, treated them like royalty and all reports out of the Irish camp were that they would do their best against the mighty Boks. The Irish have had a total of 17 changes to their starting line-up due to injury and retirement. Boks have had a total of 9 major changes. Ireland are current Six Nations champions and have a Kiwi Head Coach Joe and also, our beloved Plumbtree (ex-Sharks head Coach), played a role in this major title.

 
The Irish are a remarkable people and have earned my eternal respect for honouring SA’s 3, recently lost, sporting heroes, by holding a moment of silence, in their memory.  This includes rugby legend, the late Tinus Linee, who passed away last week.
 
The Irish started with a bang and proceeded to boss the Boks around. It is well documented that I have absolutely NO sense of humour when it comes to The Sharks or my Beloved Boks. I just cannot cope with a sub-par performance and I completely lose it when we  just don’t turn up. We never matched our hosts in passion, intensity and precision.
 
We did a few things well. Boks won all their lineouts, as well as an additional 5 Irish throws. We scrummed really well. However, sadly, it ends there. Ireland were demented  on defence. They were like a rash at the breakdown and put enormous pressure on Hougie, who just imploded. They very successfully managed to slow down our ball and forced us into handling errors. Heynecke has completely ignored ex-Sharks scrumhalf, Rory Kockett, who will now play for France.

We completely ran out of ideas on attack and at times we looked like we were playing school boy rugby…….badly. We arrogantly turned down kickable penalties. We kicked badly and I am embarrassed that our senior players did not put their hands up. Equal blame goes to both our head Coach Heynecke Meyer and the team. We beat the All Blacks a month ago and the Boks thought that they would rock up in Ireland, get the win and move on.

Pride cometh before a fall. You are only as good as your last game. We are a year before a IRB Rugby World Cup in England 2015,  and the Irish have given us a proper thrashing. We are consistently struggling with teams we should be dominating, Argentina, Wales, Wallabies and finally Ireland.

I do not want to hear the following:

•         Heynecke is the second best Bok coach
•         We are second in the world
•         We are suffering with injuries

When you want to be THE number 1 team in the world, you win matches that you should lose. We cannot afford to trip up and underestimate our opponents. Northern teams play from the heart and we need to always show humility and respect, otherwise Rugby World might have a very unpleasant and unexpected outcome. Remember, Second best is just 1st loser.