Ireland claim historic 20-26 win against South Africa at Cape Town

South Africa 20 - 26 Ireland, Cape Town
Scorecard 

Despite being a man short for three-quarters of the game, Ireland put up a stunning performance at DHL Newlands stadium in Cape Town to secure a historic 20-26 win against South Africa on Saturday.

Ireland opened the scoring account on the 10th minute as fullback Jared Payne crossed over for a try after 5-meter Irish lineout. A crafty grubber from centre Luke Marshall aided Payne as the maul collapsed.

Springboks lock Lodewyk De Jager was sent to the sin-bin for collapsing the maul.

Fly-half Paddy Jackson added the extras for the visitors with a successful conversion kick.

Ireland got penalized for players being off their feet handing a penalty to the Boks right in front of the posts. Fly-half Patrick Lambie successfully scored the penalty to finally put his side on the scoreboard.

Jackson restored the seven points lead for the visitors by scoring a penalty on the 18th minute of the game.

Ireland lost CJ Stander on the 22nd minute as the flanker was handed a red card for absolutely flattening Lambie who was knocked out cold in the middle of the pitch. That proved out to be the end of the game for Lambie who was replaced by Elton Jantjies.

Jantjies reduced the trail for his side down to four points by successfully scoring a penalty on the 25th minute as Ireland were once again penalized for being off their feet.

The home side made the most of the lineout inside the Irish 22 as Jantjies passed it on to Boks wing Lwazi Mvovo who burst clear through the Irish defence to touch down for a try.Irish centre Robbie Henshaw was sin-binned for a dangerous tackle which literally pummeled Jantjies into the ground before his pass to Mvovo.

Jantjies, however, managed to make the conversion putting his side ahead by three points with nine minutes left for the end of the first half.

With a couple of players down, Jackson made a smart decision to successfully score a drop goal on the 36th minute to equalize the scoreboard.

Ireland managed to build some early momentum at the very beginning of the second-half. A rolling maul deep inside South African territory helped Ireland to score it's second try of the match. Jackson, Payne and wing Andrew Trimble helped scrum-half Conor Murray to get across the line on the 42nd minute.

Jackson added the extras for the visitors as the lead was extended to seven points.

Persistent infraction cost Boks dearly as they ended up gifting another penalty to the visitors for going in over the top. Jackson nailed the kick to increase his side's lead to 10 points with 12 minutes left on the clock.

However, just a minute later, a terrible mistake from Jackson allowed Pieter-Steph du Toit to burst

Irish centre Robbie Henshaw was sin-binned for a dangerous tackle which literally pummeled Jantjies into the ground before his pass to Mvovo.

Jantjies, however, managed to make the conversion putting his side ahead by three points with nine minutes left for the end of the first half.

With a couple of players down, Jackson made a smart decision to successfully score a drop goal on the 36th minute to equalize the scoreboard.

Ireland managed to build some early momentum at the very beginning of the second-half. A rolling maul deep inside South African territory helped Ireland to score it's second try of the match. Jackson, Payne and wing Andrew Trimble helped scrum-half Conor Murray to get across the line on the 42nd minute.

Jackson added the extras for the visitors as the lead was extended to seven points.

Persistent infraction cost Boks dearly as they ended up gifting another penalty to the visitors for going in over the top. Jackson nailed the kick to increase his side's lead to 10 points with 12 minutes left on the clock.

However, just a minute later, a terrible mistake from Jackson allowed Pieter-Steph du Toit to burst straight through to score a touch down as the 10-point lead lasted merely for 45 seconds. Jantjies successfully made the conversion to bring the trail further down to just three points.

Jackson made a desperate attempt at a drop goal on the 71st minute but ended up hitting it wide of the posts.

With four minutes remaining on the clock, the home team was penalized once again for coming in at the side as Jackson was gifted a straightforward penalty inside 22.

Ireland managed to somehow defend their six points lead in the final three minutes to register a 20-26 win in the first Test at Cape Town.

Frequent errors and a lot of indiscipline ultimately cost Springboks the game as Ireland managed to dug deep to secure a narrow victory.