Farrell blames ‘stupid errors’ for chaotic defeat to South Africa

By Canadian Press on November 22, 2025.

DUBLIN (AP) — Andy Farrell thought he’d seen it all on a rugby field.

The coach changed his mind after a madcap match on Saturday when his Ireland suffered a 20-minute red card and four yellow cards and couldn’t stop South Africa from winning 24-13 for its first victory in Dublin since 2012.

“I haven’t seen a game like that ever,” Farrell said.

It all came to a head at the end of a pulsating first half as Sam Prendergast, Jack Crowley and prop Andrew Porter were sin-binned and left Ireland with 12 men briefly and a halftime deficit of 19-7.

“That was the turning point,” Farrell acknowledged. “A few stupid errors from ourselves playing the ball through the ruck, and I think with three offside penalties. They’re the manageable ones that you don’t give a team like that access, but we did.

“In general, as well, I thought we just lost our composure a little bit.”

Despite his frustration, he was also proud of the way Ireland rallied to fight to the end.

“Going down to 12 men, how the lads came out and showed the bottle for the country, certainly in that first 10 minutes of that second half, it was absolutely amazing. The effort they put in, the crowd recognized that and supported them.

“To be able to win a second half 6-5 under those type of circumstances, I know it doesn’t tell a full story of the second half but it’s actually amazing, really, that that happened.”

Farrell didn’t have a problem with lock James Ryan’s yellow card being upgraded to a 20-minute red after his off-the-feet clearout on Malcolm Marx, but Farrell was puzzled that there was no card for South Africa flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu after his shoulder charge on Tommy O’Brien at the start of the game.

Farrell was asked at the press conference whether he thought a factor in that might have been the Springboks staff claiming this week that in regard to cards their team has been unfairly treated by World Rugby.

“We brought it up with the referees before the game and they said that would never be a factor, obviously, because this is a separate game,” he said. “I’ll let you be the judge of that.”

The Springboks received a yellow card and had another overturned, and treated them like another day on tour. They have been used to the chaos caused by cards after taking first-half red cards against France and Italy and still managing to win with 14 men.

“We’ve had games with red cards and a concussion when there wasn’t a ping and we’ve had to grind it out,” coach Rassie Erasmus said. “In general, the match was very physical and the 20-minute red card was the correct call so that the other player could come onto the field.

“I thought we were completely dominant for most parts of the game but we just couldn’t capitalize on it while we were inside the 22-meter area, so it was hectic and difficult to manage with who went off and came back on but that’s test match rugby and you have to understand and manage those situations.”

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AP rugby: https://apnews.com/hub/rugby

The Associated Press

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