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'Champions get up when they can't': Matt Williams weighs in on Ireland's win over Boks
By Ben Smith
Two years after coming away with a 2-1 series victory in New Zealand over the All Blacks, Ireland claimed a historic drawn series 1-all with the Springboks in South Africa.
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The 25-24 win in Durban in the second Test will go down as one of the great wins in Irish rugby history, with Ciaran Frawley becoming a folk hero with two long-range drop goals in the final 10 minutes snatching the win.
Australian coach and Irish TV pundit Matt Williams weighed in on the result and what it meant for Irish rugby, with the performance showing the true character of a side that has been written off many times.
“It’s hard to compare with the past, but obviously when you win a three Test series in New Zealand, you’ve got to defend well and be physical,” he told the Virgin Media Sport podcast.
“That defensive effort to keep South Africa to zero tries, it was a brilliant, brilliant effort.
“There’s an old saying, champions get up when they can’t. There were 101 reasons before the game, during the game, for Ireland to lose that game.
“We can pick it apart with moments here and there, but ultimately that comes down to character.”
Williams revealed he doubted Ireland’s ability to bounce back from the first Test loss and picked South Africa to win.
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But Andy Farrell’s “courageous” Ireland team defied the odds after a season of provincial heartbreak to finish a mammoth season on a high.
“I thought South Africa would win the game because Ireland were tired, but these guys have proved us wrong in the past. And again, how wonderful to be proven wrong but such a courageous bunch of players who did something phenomenal,” he said.
“At the end of a 13-month season, to lose the first Test, to have the heartbreak at the provinces they’ve had, the heartbreak of the World Cup, to be beaten at Twickenham, to lose semi-finals of the URC, Leinster lose the final of the Champions Cup.
“To lose the first Test at altitude, and then to come and find a way, just find a way somehow, and they did it.
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“That to me is why we can talk about the individuals involved, and no doubt the drop goals were extraordinary, but there were so many other things in that game that were just ‘we will not yield, we will not quit, we will not say the world champions are better than us, we will fight’, and thought it was absolutely inspiring.”
In this episode of Walk the Talk, Jim Hamilton chats with double World Cup winner Damian de Allende about all things Springbok rugby, including RWC2023 and the upcoming Ireland series. Watch now for free on RugbyPass TV
Matt managed to speak sense. It's the 1st time. Ben, we are still waiting for you.
While is this imbecile still quoted as a credible source. He's a full-blown, bona fide idiot.
Hyberbole by Williams who sounds a bit blowhardy…that said, well done Irish! Properly physical match but the injury count was a bit dear for RSA (Mostert, Marx, Pieter). Sacha made some great plays and some bad plays - this is why we blood players and tests are different (understatement). Look fwd to both sides getting healthy and better and testing themselves against a full-power French side and new AB team. Everybody else needs to force their way into the conversation.
How is a drawn series historic?
While both teams have their particular positives, I think neither team should rest on their laurels.
South Africa managed to tie a series against an uncomfortable opponent, that has had their numbers for a couple of years, while trial-running a completely new attack system, that still doesn’t work properly. But one aspect of “it doesn’t work yet” is a transition from attack to defense in broken play, as the Boks leaked three tries in two matches this way, and lost the second match as a result.
Ireland avoided a series loss in a hostile environment, and in spite of many key player injuries, while managing to significantly improve and tighten their defense in game 2 (which demonstrates the breadth of their squad as well as their ability to adjust and recalibrate). At the same time, their own attack hadn’t amounted to much, either (save from exploiting the gaps in the Boks’ new system, gaps that won’t be there anymore in a few months’ time), and they haven’t found an answer to the Boks scrum, which almost costed them the 2nd match, if it hadn’t been for pretty much unrepeatable Frawley heroics.
In the end, there isn’t much that separates those two sides … which is exactly what we knew before the series already.
Back to the drawing board for both teams, the work only just begins for two teams with the highest ambition.
Start of a cycle alright.
All I can say as a SA fan is that win for Ireland is very good for rugby as a whole as it just adds another team to the top pile.
Ireland are obviously world champions now and it would be churlish for SA not to hand over the web-ellis trophy. We can now all anoint ireland as the greatest rugby team on earth.
SA was the better team and but for Feinbergs two dumb decisions on the out on the full banana kick and taking the ball into touch late in the game they would have won fairly comfortably.
Why didn’t they get up in game 1?