Ireland 13-24 South Africa: Andy Farrell ‘incredibly proud’ Irish in disarray in Springbok loss

Ireland coach Andy Farrell said he was “incredibly proud” of the fight his players showed after receiving a flurry of cards in a frantic defeat to South Africa in Dublin.

After James Ryan’s yellow card was upgraded to a 20-minute red, Sam Prendergast, Jack Crawley, Andrew Porter and Paddy McCarthy were all dropped as Ireland lost 24-13 to the world champions.

Farrell seemed optimistic about his team’s response after a chaotic first half, which Ireland ended with 12 men and trailing 19-7, and took issue with a journalist who said that the first 40 minutes were “chaotic.”

“You said anarchist. Yeah, I’m not going to repeat your word because I think you’re wrong,” Farrell said.

“I’ve never seen a game like this before, and you think you’ve seen it all, and I’ve never seen a game like this before.

“I suppose, first of all, you look at yourself and why things happened. So, we’ll do that, and make sure we learn the lessons from that.

“But my leitmotif in the game is that I’m incredibly proud, so starting a conversation like that is not a good thing.”

He added: “For all the reasons, I thought going down to 12 men, how the players came out and showed the bottle to the country, and certainly in those first 10 minutes of the second half, it was absolutely amazing.”