Victory a natural and necessary next step

Gerry Thornley On Rugby:  History is bunk? In any event, the modern history of meetings between Ireland and South Africa needs updating after a welcome new entry.

This was the seventh meeting in the professional era between the two countries, a relative glut compared to the previous 90 years, and as he has played in all of them literally no one in the history of the fixture is better qualified to provide the latest lesson than Malcolm O'Kelly.

"In the first two (on the tour there in 1998) we hadn't a chance in hell really. The two after that (at home in '98 and 2000) we had opportunities to win them but we didn't take it because we weren't at that level. In the last two? Very, very hard to win over there. But this was our time."

Much has been made of the 10-week pre-season which undoubtedly contributed to levelling out the traditionally physical imbalance of the contest, but according to O'Kelly the change, as much as anything, has been mental.

"We realised we could win and we believed we could win. There's a lot of technique involved as well. I think a lot of guys believed that they could actually hit guys and knock them back. We did a lot of work with (Mike Ford) Fordie, doing his rugby-league style techniques. Our defence has improved miraculously and to be honest over in South Africa it wasn't great. We gave them a lot of time to play. This time we went for it, and that's the way South Africa defend as well. Defending has developed and we've developed ours as well. I think we should have scored more tries. We had opportunities to score them, but between one thing and another we didn't get them."

Looking through the video only reinforces that feeling. In what was a tactical masterclass, devised by Eddie O'Sullivan and carried out by Ronan O'Gara and his other field lieutenants, some of the back play was really innovative and deserved more.

The key to the high-tempo, ball-in-hand game mixed with O'Gara's decision-making and tactical kicking was the space generated by, say, launching Paul O'Connell off quick lineout ball by O'Kelly at the tail, and there was a rich dividend reaped by targeting Jaco van der Westhuyzen's suspect hand and tackling through Shane Horgan and Brian O'Driscoll. He missed half-a-dozen tackles and nearly every one of the half dozen or so line breaks made by the Irish centres was through van der Westhuyzen.

The game plan revolved largely in setting up recycling targets in midfield, or splitting the Irish attacks off set-pieces in midfield and going wide quickly. With constantly moving targets, the Boks defence can rarely have been forced onto the back foot so much in Jake White's time.

History may well record the decisive score was a debatable try, which would be a shame and would be wrong. This is not to say John Smit, especially, and White, didn't have a point when complaining bitterly afterwards about the circumstances which led to O'Gara's 21st-minute try. A third successive penalty at the breakdown - Joe van Niekerk playing the ball when off his feet - prompted Paul Honiss to say "time off Malcolm" through his voice-piece to the television match official, Malcolm Changleng of Scotland. Pulling Smit to one side, the Kiwi referee said: "He (van Niekerk) was off his feet and played the ball. The next time I give a penalty it's going to be a different option. It's not going to be (only) a penalty. Talk to your players please," Honiss concludes, whereupon Smit duly calls his players in to inform them of the referee's warning.

While Smit's back is to play, and Honiss turns his back on him, the referee speaks into his voice-piece and tells Changleng "alright Malcolm" and starts his watch but without blowing his whistle. Credit in spades to O'Gara for reading this situation as quickly as he did, but when was Smit to pass on the warning? After the game was over?

It was justice though, poetically and literally. Prior to van Niekerk playing the ball off his feet, De Wet Barry had played the ball after the tackle and on the deck, while AJ Venter had clearly come in from the side. O'Driscoll isn't exactly Johnsonesque or Greganesque in his discourses with the officials - in part because of his position - but following the Venter penalty, and before van Niekerk's fateful indiscretion, he had a quick, quiet word with Honiss about the Boks' repeated infringements.

Furthermore that serial offender, Schalk Burger, had been penalised twice in the opening exchanges for not rolling away after the tackle (does he ever?) and for a high tackle off the ball, while Marius Joubert would surely have perished in the bin had he been identified for the one-handed, high "tackle" off the ball on O'Driscoll as he sped on to what might have been a try-scoring offload by Horgan after he had again breached the Boks' first line of defence.

As for Burger's fifth yellow card in 10 Tests for blatantly playing the ball on the deck at the breakdown after yet another incision by Horgan, he and the Boks can have no complaints.

For a team which has consistently been recording benchmark wins - the Paris, Murrayfield and Twickenham hoodoos, the quarter-century without a win over Southern Hemisphere sides and the first Triple Crown in 19 years - a first win over the Boks in 39 years was the natural and necessary next step. Now they can go into the Six Nations as credible rivals to France and England, both of whom must come to Lansdowne Road.

On a weekend when Italy, Japan, Canada and Romania conceded 295 points and 46 tries between them in facile wins for four of the established powers, and given the need for the Celtic countries to augment English and French wins over the Southern Hemisphere big three in latter times, this was also a good result for the game globally.

But that's an aside.