The Hurt Locker: Ireland v South Africa. Saturday 23rd September. Stade DeFrance

Well as things stand they'll play France if they get out of the group which I think they will.

Knob?

Well backwards, for me. Pass ends up 2.5-3.5m further up the field, while the passer is roughly 8m further up the field at the point his pass is caught.

I understand in trusting our defense, but we almost fucked it there. That last maul was pretty harrowing

The major outcome of this game is that we have either put south Africa or France out of the tournament, not a bad days work.

Without catching up on the last 24 pages of unread posts in this thread...

Well done Ireland.

If I wasnt a supporter of either team, that game wouldve been brilliant, exactly what you wouldve wanted from these 2 teams.

As a SA fan, if that was the final I might have smashed the tv in frustration at the piss poor kicking. We couldve won that, or even a draw at the minimum, so in my mind we lost the game, more than Ireland won the game, if that makes sense.

SA vs France

Ireland vs NZ

SA vs Ireland final.

Incredibly intense game. Reminded me of the time we beat NZ in the Aviva when both teams went at it.

Thought we were lucky in the end. Pollard wouldn't have missed those but in a way his strength has made SA too reliant on goal kicks to win. They really try to put the squeeze on you.

At 30 mins or so I had hope as we had taken a battering and the lineout and scrum was in real trouble but we were just 3 - 0 down.

Credit to Ire and POM as they went to shorter lineouts and made the big Saffers move up and down the lineout and not have an easy target for a jump. The kind of onfield problem solving that Farrell has mentioned.

A lot of decisions went against us in the first half and thankfully as things happen more of the decisions went our way in the 2nd half.

The good thing is we didn't play our best but still beat the world champions, who could well knock France out now if Pollard is back and Ntamack + Dupont are out. Interesting that a couple of the Irish players mentioned in post match interviews that we could be meeting again.

Glad we have the 2 week break. Scotland won't be easy but hopefully the team will build and improve from here.

But we didn't. If my aunt had balls she be my uncle.

The term ‘Mentality Monsters’ was coined by Jurgen Klopp about his great Liverpool side that swept all before them a few years ago…

I think it’s a term we can now apply to this Irish team.

But there is a world cup to be won. ;)

If we win the world cup maybe. But for now I think all I can agree with is for an Irish side, this group definitely seem to be the most mentally strong I've seen in my lifetime.

They are winning games we always lost in the past. But there's such a long way to go. If they lose in the QF then they'll have done nothing different to any other Irish team.

I had a crisis at the 50th minute when the SA pack changed and immediately mangled our scrum. The fact that we managed to get that under control is why we won that game.

I disagree, SA are lethal at the breakdown and if we hung onto the ball they would have been hunting for a turnover penalty which would have given them field position for a maul try. Also, the refs are very picky on sealing off penalties when a team is just trying to hang onto the ball through multiple phases at the end of a game. We pinned them back with those long kicks and looked comfortable enough defending their attempts to make it down field. Only for that Dan Sheehan penalty SA were struggling to enter our half of the pitch with ball in hand.

Indeed. South Africa have lost at this stage and gone on to win the competition. People saying South Africa threw it away with the missed kicks, well if Ireland's line out was not misfiring they could well have scored more points too. The highlight of the game for me was Etzebeth being lifted into the air! It underlined the immense defensive effort Ireland put into the game. If Ireland do meet New Zealand in a quarter Final, based on that performance, they should beat them.