Ireland 13-24 South Africa
Home side have five players sent to sin bin
The IRFU may be disconnected from a chunk of their audience on the price of Test rugby at Lansdowne Road but at least those who ponied up large can claim to have witnessed a truly crazy match. In the 2013 Six Nations in Rome Ireland had their backline sundered by a freakish run of injuries, leaving holes being filled by men who didn’t know how to hold a shovel. But here, on a perfect night for rugby and with a game promising to develop into a gripping contest, we saw four players banished for crimes and misdemeanours in the first half alone. Mad stuff, at the end of which the world champions stumbled to a win that should have been managed with half the effort.
The passage to the overflowing sin bin was halted only by the half-time whistle, at which point the referee, Matt Carley, was booed off the field with a venom you don’t often get at these events. Their sense of injustice kicked off with the decision not to card Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu for a dangerous tackle on Tommy O’Brien.
So South Africa took with them a 19-7 lead and the knowledge they would be starting the second half against 12 men, albeit not for long. Ireland meantime were down the corridor with Andy Farrell wondering what pieces he could move around a very bare-looking chessboard.
