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?’

“Then, all of sudden, you just continue to reproduce that character phase-in and phase-out, defensively and with ball in hand. Everybody was working really hard for each other. We got to 60, 70, 75 minutes and you think ‘there’s a chance we are going to win this’. We got over the line and made history. It was a very special day.

“You want to enjoy that for what it is. In some ways that’s a one-off occasion, a big moment in the history of Irish rugby but then looking forward to next week it gives you a little bit of appetite to move on and see if we can win this Test series. That’s a very, very exciting place to be.”

Transitioning from celebration to preparation happened as Ireland arrived in Johannesburg on Sunday evening.

“There’s always a few things you can work on and improve. They’re so physical, their skills are so good, they’re so fast and powerful that you’re worried about what’s going to be coming at you. Obviously when they’re hurting a little bit more there’s potentially even more of a fear factor because they’re fighting for their lives. I’m sure they’re getting a hard time. I’m sure they’re going to look at their performance and identify a few areas that they can improve on.

“I think next week we’re going to face a massive backlash and we need to get better. “It was a really, really big performance and one we’re very proud of but it’s important that we build on that.”