Tadhg Beirne admits Ireland had to “fight for everything” against South Africa and could easily have come out on the wrong side of a “ferocious” battle in Paris.
Test rugby’s number one nation were under severe pressure for much of the second half at Stade de France but doggedly dug in during the closing stages to secure a statement 13-8 success.
Victory over the World Cup holders stretched Ireland’s remarkable winning run to 16 matches while propelling them to the brink of the quarter-finals.
“I’m obviously ecstatic to come away with the win,” said Munster lock Beirne.
“We made tough work of it a bit in the second half, we probably struggled to get out of our half a bit.
“But the resilience we showed and the defence we showed we’ll be pretty pleased with that. They’re a big physical side and they certainly threw a lot of punches out there.
“When you’re in it, you probably don’t realise how ferocious it is, you’re just next-moment focused and we did have to fight for everything.
“It was a hard-fought battle for sure, and it could easily have went the other way. We showed a lot of resilience at the end to keep them out.”
Ireland’s performance was hindered by repeated line-out losses, but they benefited from the Springboks’ wayward goal-kicking.
Beirne believes his side deserve credit for sticking to their plan amid the set-piece struggles as they ultimately underlined their status as one of the tournament favourites.
“The way South Africa defend, they’re one of the best defensive teams in terms of the line-out,” said the 31-year-old.
“We knew they were going to be good. We had a plan, it just didn’t go the way we wanted at the start so we stuck with the plan and then it started to come good for us.
“Sometimes you win some line-outs that you think you had a plan for and sometimes you lose them, and at the start we lost them. But we didn’t fold, we stuck with the plan.
“We knew how big this game was, so it’s quite satisfying to get the win.”
South Africa missed three penalties – two from scrum-half Faf de Klerk and one from fly-half Manie Libbok.
Libbok also failed to convert Cheslin Kolbe’s try, prompting suggestions he should be replaced by the fit-again Handre Pollard, who was added to the Springboks’ squad last weekend, moving forward.
“That we’ll have to sit down and discuss,” said head coach Jacques Nienaber, whose side take on Tonga next Sunday. “There are a lot of things that go into team selection.
“We missed a couple of points off the tee but I won’t say that’s the reason solely for not getting across the line.”
