Sexton and the city: A journey to Dublin where Ireland win at rugby and 'day drinking’ is just called 'day'

Uneasy sits the crown. Yet Ireland remains, having shouldered a lawful and relentless assault by the world’s most brutal team, top of the crop. Head of class. Still standing.

A narrow win, albeit on fumes by the end, brought my neighbours at the Aviva much relief. The march down the damp stairs to the dark tunnels to the swimming streets to the packed pub was not jubilant. Chastened?

It was a proper Test match. A proper halftime score. Four tries in the second half, split equally. The hits echoed. The crowd, which had a fair 15 percent of visiting fans, oohed and aahed as Irish and South African carriers were cut down and almost in half.

Old Conor Murray was on his 100th, so often a cruel occasion for a veteran, and he went off after a fine little break ended in being crumpled.

Older Johnny Sexton spent a lot of time on his back, but kept making his languid backspin kicks like that retired golfer who joins your foursome and bounces his 4-iron on the green whilst you bomb the lob wedge into the bunker.

 Sexton of Ireland celebrates after kicking a late penalty. (Photo By Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Being in Dublin allows one to more fully appreciate how beloved Sexton is in the city’s rugby tribe.

Dublin is big enough, in mind and geography, to house a Test with the Boks without all of the town being implicated or interested.

Cardiff inundates itself on game day. In March, for their Six Nations clash with France, the Welsh rugby capital seethed and thrashed only beer-soaked rugby and the entire place heaved.

On the same weekend, I attended the Irish victory at Twickenham. Come and watch and go it was, at the cabbage patch. The car parks go on for miles, but lack a tailgate, and there is too much spread in the sensibility for it all to cohere.

Dublin is halfway between Cardiff and London, for rugby.

“You here for the game?” was the leading question by one and all to me but unlike in Wales, plenty of Dubliners are clueless about rugby, hailing as they might from Buenos Aires, Belgrade or Berlin.

Catch a real rugby Dubliner, from a rugby school, and prepare for such a lovely chat. By and large they have a humble and charming sense of their current fortunes.

Also, as every third word is an oath or swear word, the visitor is soon loosing torrents of curses upon the bar and laughter prevails.

I worked my way from the Schoolhouse beer gardens to four fine establishments on the way. For those keeping score, yes, that’s five pre-match Guinnesses, but I will add I ate absolutely nothing.

What is known as ‘day drinking’ elsewhere is called ‘day’ in Ireland.

The main arteries split off into avenues which feed finally into narrow roads flanking Lansdowne and the train; trees and flats obscuring the modernistic stadium until the last turn.

The designers said their “roof creates the image of the sky coming down to meet the ground in a reflective crystal bowl.”

Come on. There’s a dramatic dip in the north end to the roof to avoid litigation with the owners blocked out from daylight.

What is cool is how that glass and polycarbonate roof collects rain water to help irrigate the pitch and floods the stadium with natural light.

A noon start to Guinness meant that by four or so when I first saw the reflective stadium my internal crystal bowl was smashed and my reflectiveness was drowned.

But the prediction I made at team announcement (Ireland by six after being bettered by the Boks just because South Africa would miss 3 big kicks) remained in my head.

When Damian ‘Gazza’ Willemse shanked his first simple attempt, getting as close to the poles as Sam Whitelock’s barber gets to the scalp, I accepted my fate.

With the Springboks unable to convert any goal not under the posts, nor even attempt a shot from 35 out, it was always going to be a matter of tries, not goals. The teams ended with two apiece.

The Irish hardly broke the line; their scores came at the edges. In fact, their phases did not faze the Boks; Murray and Sexton were generally forced to kick it away.

The Boks won more collisions, made more breaks, gained about 60 more metres from the same number of carries, and created a few more try scoring chances.

Eben Etzebeth was in a mood (does he stay in this mood?) with 16 mostly monstrous tackles (and nary a miss) and 12 carries including a peach of an offload for the final try by Kurt-Lee Arendse (man, you have to try to get around under the poles on a night when your kicker depth chart has Bongi Mbonambi third on the list). Damian de Allende is no stranger to Leinster fans; he beat five defenders and should have got the ball more in the red zone.

But it was the Irish attack (and how the packs stacked up) I came to study. Just as at Twickenham, the opponent dropped to 14 men for part of the match. And yet, the home team did not come close to scoring whilst Cheslin Kolbe was out. In fact, Damian Willemse wasted the only chance at points during that ten minute period.

A Jacques Nienaber defence does not allow much time even as it offers space. Time after time, the second or third touch on attack was swallowed by ball-and-all tackles by spot defenders making ‘go’ reads. The Irish did not look comfortable with the ball, at all.

However, the plot was reversed: the Irish set piece functioned just that tiny bit better than the Boks’ in crucial times, they kicked at poles just enough better (it was not a great night for kickers, but the Bok range off the tee got down to 14 metres!) and their narrow defense was brave and precise.

The company line afterwards was this was an important step for Ireland, but for me, I came away less impressed in Dublin than I was at Twickers when their attack was like a smooth fencer, thrusting and parrying.

Of course, Robbie Henshaw and Bundee Aki were out and the excellent Stuart McCloskey was knocked out of the game early, leading to young Jimmy O’Brien having to play a part. This would have scrambled the wraparound patterns, but this is just Test rugby. Depth is precisely what is tested. It’s not just star versus star.

The Boks’ key man Lukhanyo Am is also out. Jesse Kriel is a big step down. Handre Pollard may not step like Gazza, but he slots kicks from fifty in, four times out of five, and rarely misses touch.

As Andy Farrell wisely warned after the match: the Boks will be better. Yes, take the win, but at home, with a 20-plus year and an almost 200-cap edge in the halves, you’d expect it to be more comfortable. If the game had gone on five more minutes, it felt like conversions wouldn’t have mattered. The gainline had gone green-and-gold; not whatever that colour of jersey the Irish had, was.

On that, at the ground, the jersey clash was not bad. I think it was worse on television. Perhaps it was the particular shades, but I doubt it was a problem in open play. At maul time, as when the excellent Josh van der Flier dove through the trees to score, perhaps it was confusing.

The sight lines are superb. It is a crowned field, so 12 rows up was a bit low. Optimum would be 20-30 levels, I think.

The teams are seen as quite different and their pre-Test drills did show that. Ireland stays connected, drilling in patterns, doing loose ball collection, forever passing but quickly, and talking.

Ah, yes. Talking. Even from the far side of the pitch, one can hear the Irish team communicating. And it continues through the match.

Pre-match South African drills focus on the constituent parts of the game, and are highly individualised. Jasper Wiese has his own coach working him through isometrics and body-weight exercises. Damian de Allende has a conversation and then a boxing bout with the padding on the poles. Friendly Frans Malherbe is on the turf, contorting. Lood de Jager jumps. He just jumps again and again.

Willie le Roux practices one-hand catches and backheel kicks. And gets into a properly grumpy mood.

Malcolm Marx and Bongi Mbonambi spend the entire time throwing lineouts at a target.

Willemse and Kolbe kicked at goals. Ordinarily, when it is say, Pollard and Frans Steyn doing that, they are casually slotting 55 metre kicks and much like an NBA shooting star, their pre-match rate of missing is unbelievably low.

This time, the kicking drill ended after about six attempts. One hit a guy in the face as he was drinking.
Nienaber asked the poor Irishman if it was Guinness. I swear it.

It is only at the end, five minutes from final dressing room, the Boks gather to play a mini game. Real scrums, tackles and mauls.

Anthem and song at the Aviva is a joy. The crowd does sing. It is not as moving as at Cardiff, but maybe more unabashedly happy. The Irish do feel a bit guilty about being rich nowadays, but at heart they are always in the mood for the craic and there is always the next morning for the guilt anyway.

The home fans rouse well for the team when defending mauls, claiming high kicks, and at the scrum. This is good to see, and old school. For the most part, they stay in their seats for the game, resisting the Twickers habit of missing half of the ball-in-play to get back in the beer line.

Irish (and the significant Saffa minority) spectators buy four beers at a time.

“Just the one?”

That’s what every seller asked me.

One at a time, son. Keep ‘em coming.

After the match I drank with four distinct groups, who overlapped.

Home fans who delight in commiserating with the vanquished, and just verge on the edge of gracious where it meets grating.

Journalists from South Africa who just want someone to pay the tab.

Bishops and Southern Suburbs old boys from Cape Town who analyse how they would fix the staid stodgy Free State tactics; and after a while just start reliving our glory days beating Paarl Gim once in our entire high school careers, and then somebody tackles somebody and we ruck in the bar as someone loses most of their pants.

Young Black South Africans who bring a whole new set of insights and now have the means and interest to go on rugby junkets and enter worlds and rooms previously denied.

Third and fourth groups for me, please.

We joked and moaned together whilst watching the Wallabies almost upset the whole bloody apple cart.

Composing myself, I joined the Roar’s own Instant Reaction (or Premature Ejaculation) podcast at a table outside the pub in the cold. Florence the bartender brought me Guinness numbers eleventeen and umpteen during the pod.

What of the matchups?

The Springbok pack is better than the Irish forwards and will be better next year. This is no knock on Taidgh Beirne, van der Flier, Caelan Doris and reborn Peter O’Mahony. I am just saying the Bok pack took the chocolates by the end, but never got due rewards for a dominant scrum. Another referee might have pinged Ireland off the pitch.

The Irish 9/10 combinations, if they can stay healthy, are more clever, but Gazza will not be the Bok flyhalf in a quarterfinal or semifinal.

The Irish attack does not look Irish against the Bok defence. It looks French: living off the counterattack. Which is to say: in a really tough Test, the space is just not there for enough time to use it. It’s there; then it’s gone.

The South African attack (sans Am) looks stilted until Willie le Roux arrives. (Willemse also does that role very well: a fullback first or second receiver).

This is no fault of de Allende, who is forever underrated and may be until he retires.

For Ireland, there is spirit and brains all over the park. This is the kind of king they are: smart.

Not a dictator. Not a bully.

Ireland wears the crown, delicately.