Ireland changed the picture to outmanoeuvre Springboks

Ireland and South Africa traded off lineout losses for goal-kick misses in an enthralling battle last Saturday night.

The World Cup holders faced off against the world's number 1-ranked side and it did not disappoint.

In any gargantuan battle, it takes wounded bodies, jawdropping work rate and fortuitous moments to get over the line - and Ireland certainly ticked all of those boxes.

Big moments win big games, and that's exactly how Ireland separated themselves from South Africa.

I don't think they got more calls from the referee, but the calls that they were slightly fortunate to get came at the right time, exemplified by the finish to the game when the ball emerging from the maul was just too late as far as referee Ben O'Keeffe was concerned.

There was a fear that South Africa might have been holding something back for this game and that they’d cause some form of chaos that Ireland couldn’t deal with.

That did not prove to be the case.

Both teams tweaked their strategies to try and catch each other out, which you would expect.

South Africa were quite up front in terms of their biggest strategy change: their 7-1 split on the bench.

With all the furore in the build-up to the match, we didn’t see the exact response that was expected from the 'Bomb Squad’. South Africa made four changes to the pack in the second half which saw RG Snyman and Jean Kleyn introduced to the pitch together, as well as Ox Nche in the front row.

It immediately resulted in a scrum penalty to South Africa, and the fear was becoming a reality for Irish supporters. However, Ireland continued to deal with what the South African pack threw at them.

The Springboks knew they had to change things up to beat Ireland. And it almost worked. If it weren’t for the