Aki lauds Irish fight but admits Springboks a class apart  

Like others, Bundee Aki is choosing to believe that this defeat will stand to Ireland going forward.

Ireland's Bundee Aki with his family after the defeat by South Africa. Pic ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan

Rugby is a complicated game. Never more so than on Saturday evening in Ballsbridge when it was a challenge at times just to confirm how many players Ireland had on the pitch against the Springboks.

Andy Farrell’s men played just 34 of the 80 minutes with 15 men at the weekend. If that was as bad as it got then it would have been serious enough. The fact they were reduced from 14 to 13, and from 13 to 12 at one point, threatened to make things farcical.

Only five of their starting XV played all 80 minutes. Among them was Bundee Aki who spoke for the simplistic focus that the home team simply had no option but to adopt when they were reduced to just a dozen souls either side of half-time.

“We knew there would be times in the game when the shit was going to hit the fan. We look each other in the eye and say, ‘I've got your back, you've got mine, let's go after it together’. That's all it is, we work as hard as we can as a group and that's all we can ask for: give everything you got.” 

This hinted at being a memorable day for very different reasons.

Ireland’s upturn in form against Australia the week before had offered the hope that they could go toe to toe with the in-form Boks. For Aki, this was a first start of the window in a midfield that has chopped and changed throughout.

For so long a favourite of former president Michael D Higgins, he was singled out by his successor Catherine Connolly on her first official visit to the stadium when the Uachtarain gave him an ‘Up Connacht’ in the pre-match formalities.

Aki was front and centre at times. His surge through the middle just after the half-hour was a key component in the move that led to Jack Crowley’s try but Bok power and Irish indiscipline soon turned the screw back on the Six Nations side.

Like so many others, Aki is choosing to believe that this will stand to them going forward.

“I think the two boys, Sam [Prendergast] and Crowler, [it] was a big learning curve for all of us, but those boys stood up. That game will stand to all of us and especially those young boys. The likes of Paddy [McCarthy] coming through, he played well when he came on.

“Cian [Prendergast] coming through, Bairdo [Ryan Baird] is just going through the roof, Sam is building confidence, Tommy O'Brien as well, then all the new cappers. Honestly, it's unbelievable to see. That kind of experience against the world champions is unbelievable.” What’s clear is that the Springboks have attained another level, separate from the rest.

It may be that an England-South Africa game would have been the best test of their exalted status this November but the scheduling gods didn’t facilitate that, just as they kept Ireland and the Boks apart too many years in recent times.

Aki was left to rue the loss of players to cards, and he played up the presence of world-class players on the Irish side, but there was an acceptance that, for now, South Africa are playing rugby that no-one else can match.

“They are. They certainly are. They’ve won two World Cups, they’re number one in the world. You can’t be an ill-disciplined team against a world-class team like that to be able to try and win a game.”