Rugby Union: Beaten Ireland bid an angry farewell

South Africa 33 Ireland

IRELAND'S tour of South Africa ended in misery and acrimony yesterday as they were hammered by the Springboks in the second Test at Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria, in a match marred by repeated ugly outbreaks of punching and kicking.

It was not a pretty sight as matters resembled little more than a boxing match for much of the time, the South Africans rubbing salt into Irish wounds on the scoreboard with five tries. It all added up to 10 tries by South Africa in the two Tests and there was little comfort for Ireland from their second mauling.

The writing started appearing on the wall for the Irish, who had won so much respect for their defiance in going down 37-13 in the first Test a week earlier, as early as the fifth minute when only a punch thrown by the prop Adrian Garvey denied the flanker Johannes Erasmus a try after a thunderous attack sparked by the fly-half Franco Smith.

But the escape only delayed the inevitable, as the Springboks piled on the pressure Paddy Johns's team were forced into an almost exclusively rearguard action despite holding their own in the scrums, with Paul Wallace again a rock at tighthead.

With a whiff of old scores to be settled clearly hanging over the encounter, Springbok scrum-half Joost van der Westhuizen turned from villian to local hero in front of his home crowd in just a couple of minutes. He was fortunate to escape with nothing worse than a yellow card for kicking Irish lock Malcolm O'Kelly but then popped up to dive over in the corner for the first of the Boks' three first-half tries.

Worse followed for Ireland late in the half, the flanker Erasmus pounding over to finish off a flowing attack and then the fired-up hooker James Dalton bulldozing his way over.

There were more yellow cards waved by the French referee Joel Dume at Springbok skipper Gary Teichmann and Irish No 8 Victor Costello with bad boy Dalton at the heart of almost everything nasty.

The relief from all that belatedly came in the 65th minute and, even if it came in the shape of a fourth South African try, it was what the game was crying out for. Teichmann was driven over by his fellow forwards for the score - only for Teichmann and Johns to return to what had become normal ugly business with another set-to.

Percy Montgomery converted to open up a 26-point advantage and South Africa had time to add their fifth try through wing Pieter Rossouw but there was still plenty of nonsense going on elsewhere for the match to be remembered for most of the wrong reasons.

South Africa: P Montgomery; S Terblanche, A Snyman, P Muller, P Rossouw; F Smith, J van der Westhuizen; O le Roux, J Dalton, A Garvey, K Otto, M Andrews, J Erasmus, A Venter, G Teichmann (capt).

Ireland: C O'Shea; J Bishop, M McCall, K Maggs, D Hickie; E Elwood, C McGuinness; J Fitzpatrick, K Wood, P Wallace, P Johns (capt), M O'Kelly, D O'Cuinneagain, A Ward, V Costello.

Referee: J Dume (France).