IRELAND, with a performance of growing authority and excellence, dismissed South Africa from their presence to get their autumn campaign off to a spectacular start.
South Africa arrived in Dublin in decent nick off the back of a draw with Australia and a narrow defeat against New Zealand in their last two Rugby Championship matches. They had quiet hopes of catching the Irish unawares but finished a distant second.
Before the game their coach Allister Coetzee had ventured the view that Ireland were Europe’s All Blacks and you wondered briefly if he was, perhaps, just engaging on a charm offensive, but not a bit of it. The Irish put South Africa away with the minimum of fuss.
Ireland against the Boks has become a fixture with real meaning and intensity in recent years and all hail that.
Their Test series last year had a bit of everything including a first ever win on South African soil for the Irish down in Cape Town when they played the majority of the match with 14 men after the dismissal of CJ Stander.
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