Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

We really miss Hansen. His ability to drop into the 10 position as a secondary playmaker is a huge asset. That extra passing option in the backs makes us far more threatening. I like Calvin Nash, he's a strong carrier and decent in the air. But he's not the playmaker that Mack is. We're just not as good on attack.

The scrum was a positive today. Our starting front row had the match of the Boks and were probably unlucky to not eke out one or two penalties.

South Africa's depth in that area did shine through and that penalty try once the bench was sprung was very impressive.

Knee injury for Sheehan apparently. Henshaw and Casey picked up bad knocks as well. High toll from that game.

It looked bad as soon as it happened. Was surprised he played on as long as he did with such heavy strapping. It was evident in the last few mins of the first half when he got the ball in space on the touchline and had no ability to accelerate, when normally he’s electric in that situation.

Just hope it’s nothing more serious that a knock that keeps him out next week.

Lineout has been struggling for ages no matter who's been at hooker

That’s true, I think it got worse when Sheehan went off today but agree it’s been a weakness with every combination of second row and hooker for about a year.

Think we should be considering a lineout coach to work alongside POC to find out what’s going on with it as he hasn’t been able to sort it. We have a specialist scrum coach so don’t see why we wouldn’t look at someone to tighten this area up. We’ve turned the scrum around over the last 9 months so this is the next weakness we need to solve.

Beirne was probably poorest of the three second rows today. He’s obviously an exceptional player but he looked sluggish and tired today, and struggled to create an impact. Ryan’s physicality was good and evident when he came on.

We lost, but there are plenty of positives to take from that game. We faced the World Champions at one of the hardest venues in the world for opposition to play, and came within a score of winning.

South Africa started the game incredibly physically and never let us settle into our attacking or defensive patterns. We scrambled brilliantly though and Doris especially was a totem for his teammates to rally around.

We were better in the second half. The Boks again started well, but didn't have quite the same dominance and we worked some good attacking opportunities. It wasn't to be in the end, but we put in a very credible performance.

In the build up to this fixture there was a lot of pessimism from online fans and in the Irish press. Quite a few were predicting a heavy defeat. The fact we were within 7 points, and on another day could have won, shows the quality of the team.