Andrew Trimble aims to ‘build on really big performance’

The enormity of beating the Springboks in South Africa has not fully hit home yet for Andrew Trimble but the Ireland wing has insisted his team has already made the switch from celebrating success in Newlands to securing victory at Ellis Park on Saturday.

Ireland’s players deserved to enjoy their 26-20 win in Cape Town on Saturday night. A side already depleted by injuries had then to deal with going a man down following the red card issued to CJ Stander just 23 minutes into the first Test. For Trimble that included filling in at blindside flanker during scrums but every one of the 14 who remained on the pitch played their part in the effort to keep the hosts at bay and defend a lead carved out by the boot of Paddy Jackson and tries from Jared Payne and Conor Murray.

History was made as the first Irish team to win a Test here and Trimble yesterday said: “It maybe hasn’t sunk in just yet. I think whenever the sending off happened around 25 minutes in, you kinda think ‘right, let’s hold on here for as long as we can here and get to half-time’. And we were just fighting it out for each other and showing massive character, but you wondered ‘how long can this go on for?’