Jamie Osborne will be the first to say he found himself out of position for the first South African try in the second minute. His covering run across to the right to make a tackle on Kurt-Lee Arendse was overshot and the left wing stepped inside all too easily.
That was unfamiliarity with the new roll at fullback and the debutante found himself over-committed to a world class player and he paid the price.
That early phase of the match was also one in which Ireland had not gotten to grips with their fringe defence play and the Springboks were posing all sorts of questions for the Irish players to problem solve on the run. It improved in the second half.
That said you would have to think Andy Farrell saw a lot of good things from the Leinster back that will encourage him to persist as Hugo Keenan heads to Paris for the Olympic Games with the Sevens team.
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Osborne showed one thing all fullbacks need and that’s composure under pressure. He has also borrowed from Keenan’s willingness to get into forward channels and that instinct set him up perfectly for a nice hard carry at the end of the first half and to score his try.
Lowe’s wonderful touchline save, flip back in mid-air while over the whitewash to find Osborne was because Osborne read the play and made himself available. The Irish fullback also controlled the ball on the second asking and executed well to score.
On another occasion in defence he ran from the right to left and slid over to take a ball kicked through by Willie le Roux, with several Springbok players baring down. Again, Osborne contained himself, got into the correct position on the ground and presented to Irish players in support. Another inexperienced player would have grabbed the ball, lay on it and given away a penalty.
His kicking from hand to touch was also encouraging and although he misjudged one aerial ball from a Springbok clearance in the first half, he showed himself to be confident under high balls. South Africa launched a few early ones to test him out and he dealt with them.
Farrell is looking for a player to provide cover for Keenan and has tried a few including Ciarán Frawley and Jordan Larmour and obviously remains unsettled on the best choice.
All in all, playing in his first cap and in a stress position, where it is easy to be exposed, Osborne made errors but did some very good things and that’s to be expected. He has played before at fullback but never at this level.
He is 22-years-old, has played just 17 times for Leinster and now is capped for Ireland against the World Cup winners ahead of the second Test match next week in Durban. That’s positive.
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