At the end of your career, you have your medals and caps to look back on.

Those things are for you, though. Fans, supporters, and media; they don’t win medals, they don’t lift cups and they don’t play the games. All we have is the memories. How a moment made us feel in the moment, and then how we tag that moment to an emotional connection. For example, I’ve met Denis Leamy in person doing TRK, I’ve shook his hand, and I’ve spoken to him at length about defence, upcoming games and whatnot. But that’s not the Denis Leamy I remember. The Denis Leamy I remember is the guy who scored the try that put Munster into the lead in the 2008 Heineken Cup final. I only heard that part on the radio so there I was yelling and hollering in my car outside of Garvey’s Supervalu in Ticknock, Cobh. I saw the rest of the game on the TV, but that moment was flash-frozen in my mind because I felt it. So, sorry Denis, whenever I look at you I think of that moment back in Cobh when I had hair, shouting in my car.

I’ve not been shy about saying how exhausted I was by this end-of-season tour. The predictability of Ireland’s squad, the discourse around that, the ever-increasing toxicity from the official Springbok media and the resulting social media aggro it was designed to inflame – it all weighed on me after a long 13 months at this game. Whenever I’ve mentioned how long the season has been on Twitter in the last three weeks, I’ve had Springbok fans quote tweeting and replying to me talking about how I was making excuses for the Irish players. I wasn’t talking about the Irish players though, I was talking about myself. I’m tired. I’m burned out. I’ve been going week to week since July 2023 with the build-up to the 2023 World Cup.

So this tour – the idea of it – was exhausting and that was before the social media warfare kicked into gear. The main thrust of that warfare, especially after the first test, was this; Ireland isn’t shit. You’re soft. You think you’re the best team in the world because you’re arrogant but you’re wrong. You should know your place.

It didn’t matter that this “arrogance” was almost entirely fabricated by the Springboks themselves in an attempt to fuel the emotional burner for the squad and, by extension, the fans. You know they’re grasping at straws when the examples they use about Ireland saying “we’re the real best team in the world” are an interview with Felipe Contepomi (an Argentinian), Finn Russell (a Scotsman), drunk fans before and after the game in the World Cup pool game last year talking to fucking SportsJoe, and Irish journalists crowing after a Springbok loss in 2017. It was stuff for the dressing room wall that leaked into the Twitter timeline.

It was grasping. It was manipulative. Frankly, it was beneath a brand as big and as prestigious as the Springboks. You’d say something if Daire O’Brien, Matt Williams or Ger Gilroy were lining up at 10, 12 and 13 for these tests but they weren’t. We were promised a “war” and we got it.

This week I wasn’t tired anymore.

This week, I wanted Ireland to shut them all up. You won’t do that in the media, you won’t do it on Twitter. You’ll do it out on the pitch.

I wanted Ireland to front up physically after getting bullied the week before, leave a few fucking marks on them and win. I didn’t care about squad development anymore. I didn’t care about World Cup cycles. On Friday night at around 10 pm, I lay in bed and thought… I hope we fucking do these tomorrow.

And like that, I was back in.

The marketing worked.

And this is where we get back to the idea of what you take with you at the end of your career, and what the fans take with them. Ciaran Frawley will probably finish his career with more than the two senior medals he currently has but, after the weekend, he has something infinitely more valuable; he has a place in the collective Irish rugby fan memory.

This is up there with O’Gara’s drop-goal against Wales and Sexton’s against France when it comes to iconic, “I’ll Remember This” moments. Whatever else happens in his career after this, Ciaran Frawley will always have Kings Park, Durban with the clock in the red and a drop-goal winner for the ages.

I’ll remember where I was; sat on the couch with my daughter reading a book (Never Feed A Llama A Banana) when that drop-goal went over. I started cheering and waving my fist in a way that was a little too middle-aged for my liking, actually, now that I thnk about it. I turned around and saw my little girl clapping and looking up at me with that adorable “yaaaa” she does at the end of every song or book we sing or read.

Thanks for that, Ciaran.

***

How did the Springboks go from the flowing rugby we saw in the first half of the first test to the relatively familiar – and defendable – attack we saw at the weekend that yielded zero tries?

The first thing to note; Ireland’s offensive breakdown and collision work were infinitely better in this game. As a result, we dominated key time blocks with more or less the same number of rucks as the first test. Forget about ruck speed – we were committing more defenders and putting them on the floor with more venom and violence. In the first half, in particular, that allowed us to pepper five scores across the first two ten-minute blocks and then the last ten-minute block before halftime.

The Boks didn’t have the time in possession that they did last week and, when they did, it was in areas where we were comfortable; like off the lineout. The Boks are playing very directly here and they’re tough to stop, for sure, but it’s doable.

Pollard has very little to offer at the end of the play and Nash can mop up that chipped kick to the back pin with ease. We finished the half with a flurry of three-pointers to stretch the lead to 10 points and the feeling that the Springboks barely landed a shot, especially relative to the last test.

Why was that? Ireland’s kicking.

Not only did we up the kicking volume from last week – twenty-one kicks last week, thirty-six this week – but we also changed up our kicking distance and trajectory. In test one, our kicking was in the mid-range and heavily contestable. This week, we changed up the distance – and the targeting.

The distance we added took sapped the legs of the Springbok pack but the targeting in the middle of the field meant that they had to split their attacking resources. That meant far more predictable outcomes than last week – either a reset carry or a kick.

The Boks were always going to have a purple patch though and, like last week, it was right after halftime. They had a huge 20 minutes right after half-time and Ireland did well to not concede a try in that time. We did concede four kickable penalties though, which Pollard duly converted to leave us two points down coming up on 60 minutes. Those 12 points ate away our lead but they were better than the 21 points we could have conceded from the linebreaks and penalty positions we conceded in that block.

Jack Crowley struck a penalty to take a one-point lead back right before he came off, but the Springboks soon had the lead back from the restart after a very handy offside call.

In the last twenty minutes, both sides looked out on their feet. It looked like our issues in the scrum were going to cost us once again with Bealham collapsing under pressure from Steenekamp. Pollard would land his kick to make it a five point game and, seemingly, put the game out of reach.

Ciaran Frawley stepped up to land one huge drop-goal off a goal-line drop out to make it a two-point game. From there, you felt we needed a try or… another drop goal because Karl Dickson was not in the mood to hand out anything other than the most obvious penalty. The Boks are better than that and, when Frawley misjudged a crossfield kick – both in the execution and in the conception – it felt like the game was gone.

With 77 minutes on the clock and a lineout on the Irish 10m line… well, the World Champions weren’t going to cough up a loss from here. Right? They take the ball at the front – contested – but build a maul and then launch Van Staden up the fringe at the inside #10 channel.

That’s a huge stop by O’Mahony and Herring to dislodge the ball and force a scrum. From here, look, we weren’t going to be winning any scrum penalty so Frawley called a move he’d have run a thousand times at Leinster in training. Loop off the screen ball at #12, perfectly executed by McCloskey, scorch around the compression created by Henshaw and then stab the ball down the line with the right boot and hope to get the ball off the field as close as you can to the 22. Maybe get a 50/22 but at worst, get a lineout platform that Baird or O’Mahony could attack.

It got the best bounce possible. You earn your luck in this racket. The high bounce spooked Feinberg-Mngomezulu enough that he had to take the ball out of play. He couldn’t leave it for fear that Lowe would snag it and that gave Ireland a lineout and one more chance.

We called for the drop goal before the ball was even thrown in.

We were right to do it. Etzebeth collapses the maul and no penalty. Pollard goes head-to-head with Doris on the first collision and no penalty. The pass from O’Mahony off the maul break is as good as you’ll see; it allowed Doris to hit the line without adjusting.

That just-off-centre position on posts-left was vital and we had to keep it but we also had to make it look like it wasn’t a drop-goal attempt until after the scrumhalf picked the ball up and the kicker was in the pocket.

Blade would pass off his left side to Frawley, but Frawley would have to take the ball, address the ball and then drop and strike from roughly the middle of the field.

That way, when you make the strike, all you have to do is kick it straight if you get a good bounce.

Frawley got a bad bounce but his follow-through saved the say. For a second it looks like he hooked it.

But the follow-through gave the ball enough counter-rotation to swing back against the hook and fly straight over the bar for the win. And a little bit of history.

Sure, Ireland counter-punched here and that winning play was, what, probably a one in ten? One in fifteen? But you earn that luck. Ireland were bristling with aggression for the entire game and got early marks on Mostert and Etzebeth. After the week that was and the callow work in the first test, it felt good to see Mostert and Etzebeth split open early. No free lunches this week. No backward steps. No fear.

And it worked. This game is meaningless in the grand scheme of things and, in some ways, poses more questions for the future than it does answers but as the end of a World Cup cycle goes, it’s a great way to sign off.

Player	Rating
Andrew Porter	★★★★★
Ronan Kelleher	★★★★
Tadhg Furlong	★★★★★
Joe McCarthy	★★★★
James Ryan	★★★★★
Tadhg Beirne	★★★★
Josh Van Der Flier	★★★★
Caelan Doris	★★★★
Conor Murray	★★★★
Jack Crowley	★★★★
James Lowe	★★★
Robbie Henshaw	★★★
Garry Ringrose	★★★
Calvin Nash	★★★
Jamie Osbourne	★★★★★
Rob Herring	★★★
Cian Healy	★★★
Finlay Bealham	★★
Ryan Baird	★★★
Peter O'Mahony	★★★★
Caolin Blade	★★★★
Ciaran Frawley	★★★★★
Stuart McCloskey	★★★