By Mark Jones
South Africa 37, Ireland 13
BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa – Record books can be very unforgiving. They will show that Ireland were beaten, 37-13, by South Africa in the first of two tests at Bloemfontein on Saturday. What they won’t show is the quality of the Irish performance.
In the end the Springboks ran out deserving winners, but it was a day when Irish rugby reclaimed a great deal of its pride. With even a modicum of luck, they would have been an awful lot closer to the powerful Boks.
South Africa raced into an early 7-0 lead, but Ireland refused to be intimidated. They fought back with a penalty goal from Eric Elwood and then stunned their hosts with a try by winger Justin Bishop, which Elwood converted to give Ireland a 10-7 lead in the 19th minute.
South Africa were back in front, 13-10, by halftime, but Ireland hung on gamely and it wasn’t until the final 20 minutes that things went badly wrong. It was a day to remember for new South African winger Stefan Terblanche, who scored four tries on his debut.
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His pace destroyed the Irish cover, but it would be wrong to dwell too much on the negative aspects. Ireland played well enough for long periods against the world champions to suggest that things are finally coming right ahead of next year’s World Cup.
Keith Wood, Eric Elwood, Conor O’Shea, Kevin Maggs and Justin Bishop all gave superb performances, and while Ireland were 24 points adrift at the end, they will be a lot more hopeful heading into next Saturday’s second test.