Ireland trounce South Africa 38-3 in Dublin

Ireland 38-3 South Africa, Aviva Stadium
Scorecard

A dominating performance from Ireland saw them register their biggest win over South Africa as they started the autumn international campaign with a resounding 38-3 victory at Aviva Stadium on Friday.

Things did not start well for the Springboks as they lost prop Coenie Oosthuizen in the second minute with a leg injury. Two minutes later they suffered a setback when Beast Mtawarira was penalised for illegal scrummaging and Johnny Sexton slotted the penalty to get Ireland off the mark.

With the Boks struggling to handle errors, Sexton kicked two more penalties to make it 9-0 by the end of the first quarter. With Courtnall Skosan failing to deal with a kick from Conor Murray, Andrew Conway capitalised on the error and scored his first international try in the 24th minute as Ireland stormed into the half time with a 14-0 lead.

South Africa finally managed to open their account with a 43rd minute penalty from Elton Jantjies but that remained their only points in the game. With Pieter-Steph du Toit penalised for an infringement, Sexton slotted another penalty to restore Ireland's 14 point lead just before the end of the third quarter.

There was no respite whatsoever for Allister Coetzee's men as Ireland added three more tries coming from Rhys Ruddock (70'), Rob Herring (75') and Jacob Stockdale (80)' and with Sexton kicking all the three conversions, they completed a resounding 35 point victory.