Ireland’s ecstasy as cool Frawley steals it
South Africa………………… 24pts
Penalties: Pollard 19, 35, 45, 48, 53, 57, 61, 65
Ireland…………………………. 25pts
Tries: Murray 14
Conversions: Crowley 15
Penalties: Crowley 6, 38, 42, 59
Drop goals: Frawley 70, 80
Ireland finished their 55-week long season with a last second win over the world champions when replacement Ciaran Frawley smashed over the second of two audacious and majestic late dropped goals.
Frawley’s prodigious boot, from hand and with his beloved dropped goal, has been acknowledged for a while down Leinster way but perhaps the Boks hadn’t done their homework? At the death, after a storming second-half comeback from the home team, they allowed Ireland much too much time and space to tee Frawley up. It was as if they didn’t sense the danger.
The dropped goals still had to be kicked though, both were well over 40 metres, but Frawley frankly never looked like missing, the ball getting over with plenty to spare on both occasions to silence the raucous Durban crowd.
To their discredit the stunned South Africans tried to claim a completely non-existent block as they attempted to charge Frawley but the match officials, rightly, gave it short shrift.
Ireland leapt high in celebration, with this historic win a fitting way to mark Andy Farrell’s 50th match in charge. His team has played the world champions three times in the last nine months, none of the games have been in Dublin, and they have effectively won the ‘series’ 2-1.
Prior to this game Farrell had made the huge call of dropping skipper Peter O’Mahony to the bench – the correct decision – but it will have pleased all concerned that O’Mahony played a big role in setting up the final winning dropped goal. There was a certain karma about the denouement of this game.
If Ireland ever bother to review the match – frankly all concerned should head for the beach and/or family holidays asap after a year and a bit on the road – they might conclude that they nearly blew this one. Nearly but not quite.
They turned round 16-6 up but there then followed one of those 20 minute periods that have bedevilled Ireland and indeed Leinster for that matter when they lose discipline at the breakdown and concede an avalanche of penalties. That can be very costly when the opposition have a goal kicker as good as Handre Pollard in their ranks. Pollard had been off form last week but he never has two duff matches on the trott off the tee.
The Boks went from 16-6 down at half-time to 18-16 up in very short order and Ireland could only quibble with one of those calls when Joe McCarthy incorrectly got pinged for offside after a Boks player has clearly touched a high ball from Pollard first. That was genuinely unlucky but having gone behind for the first time in the game, Ireland finally steadied the ship with a penalty from the excellent Jack Crowley and started spending time in the Boks half again.
Cue Frawley who came on and looked inventive from the start and later it was his brilliant threaded ball along the left touchline that forced the Boks to concede the final lineout from which he then applied the coupe de grace.
Where did Ireland get the energy from? At the end of a marathon season you worried that Ireland might not have much left in the tank but with a big match feel at Kings Park and electricity in the air they roared into action in the opening 40 looking much the sharper team.
If anything they should probably have been more than 16-6 up come the break but the intensity of proceedings and the physicality on show meant defences were mainly on top. Within ten minutes both Boks locks had departed to be patched up for cuts and Franco Mostert picked up another knock on his return and had to leave the field for good. It felt like a knockout match in the World Cup, the final that many predicted in France?
Ireland opened the scoring with a medium range penalty from Crowley who has a zen-like calm about him amidst the madness and soon after struck for a cracking try with young Jamie Osborne – impressing as he did on debut last week – playing a big role. He cut a sharp telling line to link with Robbie Henshaw who in turn found Conor Murray running the classic scrum-half cheat line. Was the final pass forward? It was marginal that’s for sure but the officials seemed happy enough and South African complaints were a little half-hearted.
Pollard opened the Boks account with a penalty as the world champions inched their way back into the game and the home side then looked certain to score as space opened up as former sevens expert Kwagga Smith found himself in oceans of space 25 metres or so from the line. A try looked certain but that man Osborne, deceptively quick for such a big unit, came sprinting across field to pull off a try scoring tackle. His entrance into Test rugby has been nothing short of sensational.
Ireland were hanging on a little and soon after it needed a miraculous line-out turn-over from McCarthy to rescue the situation on their line and for all their pressure during this period a second Pollard penalty was the Boks only reward.
Having weathered that storm Ireland camped down on the Boks 22 for the final knockings of the first half and accumulated valuable points to reach half-time seemingly in good shape. Firstly, Crowley slotted over a 35 metre effort after some pretty crass blocking by Pieter-Steph du Toit as Ireland chased a high kick and then in added time the Munster fly-half added a third penalty from in front of the posts.
A bitter sweet moment that. Ireland were playing advantage and though the three points were welcome they actually butchered a big overlap on the right which would have garnered even more points. Even before the advantage only an extraordinary tackle by du Toit denied Caelan Doris as he wheeled away from a scrum five.
Most of the second half that followed was excrutiating for Ireland fans… but the agony was well worth the late ecstasy.
