By Cathal Dervan

What's seldom was indeed wonderful as Eddie O’Sullivan’s Ireland scored only their second ever win over the mighty South Africans at Lansdowne Road on Saturday.

A 39-year wait came to an end as Ronan O’Gara masterminded a quite deserved victory on a day of raw emotion at the old stadium.

The Munster out-half scored all 17 points, including a quick thinking but disputed try from a five meter tapped penalty in the 21st minute as Ireland, 8-3 ahead at the break, downed the new Tri-Nations champions.

Boks full-back Percy Montgomery landed all his side’s points with four penalties, three in the second half, but they just couldn’t take the try chances that came their way.

Ireland’s defense held up everything the huge South African pack could throw at them, with O’Gara just clinching the man of the match award ahead of debutante Johnny O’Connor, Anthony Foley and centers Brian O’Driscoll and Shane Horgan.

Irish coach Eddie O’Sullivan refuted the South African claims about the legality of O’Gara’s try and said, “I thought the try was smart thinking. Ronan kept his head up and it was a case of the early bird catching the worm. Everyone had assumed, including myself, that he was going to put it into the corner.

“That sort of opportunism tends to work against Ireland so I was chuffed it happened in our favor. But that was just one moment in the game and was not the difference between the sides.

“We didn’t want to let the Boks get into the game early — if they get up and running and start offloading then you’re in trouble. So the idea was to pin them back in the corner with the breeze behind us.

Springbok skipper John Smit led the protests at that try afterwards when he said, “We’d been penalized and the referee called me up and told me to talk to my players. So I started calling my players in and saw the try being awarded. It’s hard to keep your side calm after something like that.”

The Boks came to these shores dreaming of a clean sweep of scalps from Britain and Ireland but that is now beyond their grasp with England at Twickenham next up on Saturday.

Coach Jake White said, “The Grand Slam was a milestone we wanted to achieve. It’s gone now but we’ve only been together for 10 Test matches this year. We face England now and that’s another big one.”

There were a few tears shed during Ireland’s national anthem, and skipper Brian O’Driscoll revealed these were provoked by his side’s determination to atone for the disappointing two-test defeat by the Springboks in June.

Ireland: Dempsey; Murphy, Horgan, O’Driscoll, Hickie; O’Gara, Stringer; Corrigan (Horan 74 mins.), Byrne, Hayes, O’Connell, O’Kelly, O’Connor (Miller 80 mins.), Easterby, Foley.