Kwagga Smith and three other South Africa vs Ireland talking points

We got fireworks in Pretoria on Saturday but not in the anticipated way. The script was that these two teams would go at it hammer and tongs from the first whistle but it took quite a while to boil over once you leave aside the third-minute sweep that ended with Kurt-Lee Arendse opening the scoring.

Despite knocking around at altitude for over a week, Ireland were flat for far too long a stretch on the Highveld while South Africa were imprecise in a good chunk of what they tried to do, showing signs of a team playing its first match in nine months and with a raft of new assistant coaches involved.

That lack of finesse left the contest stuck in a 13-8 rut to the Springboks from the 35th to the 65th minute – the same final score that was inked in Paris last September at the Rugby World Cup but with Ireland winning – and it needed an exquisite piece of opportunism from Cheslin Kolbe to shatter the stalemate courtesy of James Lowe’s costly touchline acrobatics.

We then got a breathless finish. Three tries, two yellow cards, one a penalty try – a spectacular late-game flourish that a suffocating arm wrestle-dominated contest didn’t really deserve.

That was the over-riding feeling leaving Loftus Versfeld for a night-time spin down the motorway to Johannesburg; that a fixture that generated so much hype in the recent weeks and months didn’t ignite in the first half and deliver a top, top quality Test match.

The hope will be that the exchanges are of a far higher calibre at sea level in Durban next Saturday. In the meantime, here are the RugbyPass talking points following the 27-20 win for South Africa in Pretoria:

Diplomatic Rassie, Irish fume

How times change. Rassie Erasmus, the bete noire of rugby officialdom for a couple of years, sounds like he is being well tutored by Jaco Peyper, the retired referee who is now on the Springboks management ticket. Asked about the TMO decisions that affected Ireland and enhanced South Africa, he suggested that the tourists should perhaps just suck it up. “I certainly have learned from the past, let it be. Yes, that’s a protocol, that’s how it works,” he said.

Ireland will go through the channels to get some feedback for the decisions that were reached but Farrell couldn’t resist stoking the flames with a barbed aside before that procedure. “It’s not for me to say but I saw quite a few of them live and they had a dubious thought about it but anyway, that’s life.”

It’s not for RugbyPass to say either way what the calls should have been but the Ronan Kelleher one, which resulted in the cancellation of the breakaway James Lowe try, was akin to the which came first debate, the chicken or the egg.

The sub hooker was eventually penalised for being off-feet when playing the ball back on the Ireland side with his leg but was a debate needed over whether the reason he went off-feet in the first place was that he got neck-rolled at the breakdown?

Whatever the answer, the bottom line for Ireland was that the TMO didn’t lose them this game. They simply stank in the first half – as Farrell admitted, “We were off” – and that 13-3 gap was too much of a margin to fully reel in. It makes it two defeats in three for the Irish and the in-between in over Scotland was a zero-highlights affair even though it clinched them a Six Nations title.

It suggests these are very interesting times in this post-World Cup era for Farrell and co as they need to see signs of evolution before he heads off at the end of the year on his British and Irish Lions sabbatical. How they change it up and attack the game better next weekend will be intriguing.

Bear in mind they have successfully responded to this type of adversity before, hitting back two years ago in game two versus New Zealand after losing game one. However, that was with a half-back partnership of the now-retired Johnny Sexton and the unavailable Jamison Gibson-Park.

While Jack Crowley is slowly but surely making his way in filling in for Sexton, Ireland badly missed the trademark Gibson-Park energy in the first half in Pretoria and will likely have Conor Murray starting in Durban with Craig Casey left in a bad way with his second-half head injury.

Coming of age at 31

Pieter-Steph du Toit will always be a standout player in the Springboks back row, but is the unsung Kwagga Smith about to come of age in the team as a recently-turned 31-year-old? The former sevens circuit specialist, who made a Test debut in 2018, had 40 caps coming into this new-season era with Erasmus back in charge but he hadn’t started all that much.

For instance, there was just one start in six appearances at the 2023 Rugby World Cup, two at the 2019 World Cup, and his busiest-ever Rugby Championship was 2021 when he started in three of his six appearances.

Now, though, he is after starting at both No6 and No8 in recent weeks and while he wasn’t as prominent versus Wales at Twickenham on June 22 with ‘just’ 10 carries, he was a vital presence against the Irish with his direct play.

His total of 17 carries was no mean feat, being six more than the next-best Springbok (Willie le Roux on 11) and eight more than the next-best forward (du Toit on nine). Now there were three turnovers lost in what he did, but away from the carrying he won one turnover and also got in seven tackles.

Duane Vermeulen’s retirement has left Erasmus with a big role to fill and Smith has certainly shown he has the skill to flourish. What was absorbing was that his directness across the 80 minutes allowed the Springboks to toy with having Kolisi and du Toit out wide in a tactic that wasn’t previously used which was great given that Ireland's best player on the night was their No8 Caelan Doris.

Having flankers run down the wide channels is a fascinating development for the Boks. Du Toit on the ball was no unusual sight; his ball-carrying had always been top-drawer, but Kolisi on the ball was a rare sight and he enjoyed himself at Loftus.

“Getting the ball in my hands, I really enjoyed that today,” he said as the dust settled. “We are still learning what coach Tony (Brown) wants us to do and it is only going to get better.”

'Borne identity

The slick way Arendse finished his try ignited fears that the debut-making Jamie Osborne could be in for a horrid maiden appearance in place of the Olympic Sevens-bund Hugo Keenan. It wasn’t his off-balance reaction per se that most cost Ireland in that situation.

Calvin Nash reacted too slowly in this instance and in general across the evening, Ireland collectively didn’t counter the Springboks repeatedly attacking with Kolisi and du Toit in the wide channels. Osborne, though, bounced back superbly, exhibiting confidence in the air while the dexterity witnessed in his try finish was wonderful. He ultimately only played 51 minutes but he won’t be a one-cap wonder, that is for sure.

About Kolisi and du Toit handling more visibly, Erasmus admitted it was a sign that he is trying to expand the foundation laid by the departed assistant Felix Jones and yet, as exciting as this was, the most rousing Springbok pack moment was when Erasmus hooked six of the starting eight forwards in one fell swoop on 50 minutes. An electricity raced through the crowd seeing this happening.

They endured a watery start, Ireland winning a scrum penalty when the match restarted. However, the power of this reconfigured Bok pack in the scrum later harvested a penalty try and a yellow card. That was a sharp reminder that scrummaging is what South Africa do best.

Boozy question

If there was the common denominator between the Springboks at Loftus and Ireland at Aviva it was the staggering amount of booze that fans put away in the lead-up to the 5pm local time kick-off. Now, the atmosphere that unfolded during the rugby was memorable but some fans would have woken up Sunday morning with little or no recollection as to what might have happened during the match.

It is a very rugby thing, boozy walks in the stands while play is unfolding, but the regular sight of people having to momentarily take their eyes off the match to stand up and allow a beer-carrying punter to bring the latest round to his seat would surely have made the match day experience of those who wanted to see all of the game uninterrupted a loveless impossibility.

This isn’t a dig at South African fans attending the ironically named Castle Lager series. The match day experience in Dublin, where the spring-time matches take place in a Guinness-sponsored tournament, also leave a lot to be desired for the very same up-down booze reason.

Finding a happier match day going medium than what is currently the case isn’t easy given the heavy revenue it generates for those unions staging the matches, but this constant up and down for fans who only want to see the match doesn’t seem fair in a sport that ultimately wants to attract new spectators and grow.