Former Ireland midfielder Andrew Trimble has blamed James Ryan for inexcusably changing last Saturday’s match versus the Springboks with a moment he labelled as “bizarre”.
Ireland thought they had scored a 20th-minute try in Dublin to pull them level at 5-all with South Africa with a lead-taking conversion kick to come.
Instead, referee Matthew Carley was told to review a clear-out at a ruck in the build-up to Tadhg Beirne getting over the line, and it was decided action needed to be taken against second row Ryan for the way he needlessly flew into the breakdown and clattered into Malcolm Marx.
With Ryan sent packing to the sin-bin with a yellow card that was soon upgraded to a 20-minute red, the Irish try was ruled out.
Game changer
That was as close as they came in the match to being level on the scoreboard with the Springboks, who proceeded to dominate the scrum and win 24-13 with a four-one try count.
Much of the fallout from the match has focused on the period of pressure play just before the interval, where Ireland copped three yellow cards and conceded a penalty try, but Trimble insisted the game changer was the Ryan incident midway through the opening half.
Having had a few days to reflect on the match, the 70-cap back appeared on The Second Captains podcast to share his perspective, and he wasn’t shy in blaming Ryan for the defeat that was Ireland’s second loss of the November window and their third in 2025.
“It was a big moment of the game,” he began, claiming that what Ireland had done until that 20th-minute incident had impressed him. “I’d probably be stronger on how you’d describe the Irish attack; it was better than decent. It was very good for a period.
“They looked clinical, they looked like they were finding holes, they were smashing breakdown, fast ball, they looked really dangerous. And even just that, combined with some of the midfield play where they were able to throw it over the top. James Lowe, a couple of kicks, one accurate, one not so accurate. Putting them into a position where they can stretch that backfield.
“That is exactly what you want to do, take the sting out of this big, physical, formidable front five of South Africa – all they want to do is get off the line and hit lads, win collisions. Just shifting them around seemed to be the perfect strategy. It was perfect, and then James Ryan completely changed the game…
“The James Ryan thing was so disappointing. It just seemed bizarre. Up until that, the Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, the no-arms shoulder charge, for me that was yellow but no more yellow than Tommy O’Brien’s thing (later in with Canan Moodie, which went uncarded).
“I found myself thinking, ‘Would it kill you South Africans just to use an arm every now and again?’ You’ve Lood de Jager, you’ve got (Franco) Mostert, and then Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu. Would it really hurt? Does it really make it much easier to defend or to tackle without using (an arm)?
“I don’t understand what the motivation is. And then Ryan does that and totally defeats all of my mindset on that. If the precedent is that Lood de Jager’s is a permanent red, then his [Ryan’s] is more red than that because Lood de Jager at least has the excuse of how low he was. He couldn’t have been any lower. James Ryan doesn’t even have that as an excuse.
“We were lucky there (that it was only a 20-minute red), but the irrational crowd around us don’t see that rationale, they don’t see that logic. That moment was big, and a lot of everything else came from that. We’re under pressure more and more and as the game goes on, that pressure exacerbates.
“At the scrum, (Andrew) Porter did well to last until 40 minutes before he got his yellow card. I couldn’t believe it was (Sam) Prendergast and (Jack) Crowley who got yellow cards because everything was looking like Porter was getting a yellow.
“And I agree South Africa maybe weren’t quite as clinical the way we have seen them in the past, the way they were in Wellington against New Zealand. That’s because they were just enjoying playing with their food, they were just enjoying having a good time destroying the atmosphere of the Aviva, destroying all of the Irish hopes and aspirations and just saying, ‘This is what we do best and you can go nowhere, we have you here and you have got nowhere to go’.”
Sticking with Ryan’s game-changing folly, Trimble explained that it wouldn’t have been a spur-of-the-moment act, that it instead would have been in his mind all week due to the way Ireland would have trained at the breakdown to get quick ball.
“That desperation, you are talking about the negative version of that desperation and inevitably it ends up being an illegal action and it is chalked down as ill-discipline. You mention Malcolm Marx as a static target, how many times have we seen him being static just before he is incredibly dynamic and gets on the ball before anybody gets the chance to get anywhere near him?
“He was crowned world player of the year after another incredibly devastating performance. No doubt Ireland might have trained that week with Malcolm Marx in a bib. To be fair, you could have five or six South Africans in bibs when you are training, this is a target – ‘We have to get to this breakdown, we have to win this space ahead of him’.
“So that’s in James Ryan’s head. It doesn’t come from nothing; it comes because there is an emphasis there, we have to be desperate.”
Trimble went on to bemoan the shortcomings in Ireland’s skill level as a way to negate the dominance the Springboks enjoyed at the scrum. By the end of Rugby World Cup 2023, the Irish had given up just three yellow cards in 29 matches, but the card count in the 22 games since then is three reds and 19 yellows.
“It could be discipline, but you don’t just become ill-disciplined,” reckoned the retired 41-year-old, who was last capped in 2017. “Back then, no red cards, very few penalties, very few yellow cards because we were the best team in the world. We dictated terms to the opposition, we create the tempo, we create the intensity, and they try and keep up with us, and it is them that become ill-disciplined.
“It’s not that they are ill-disciplined, it’s because they are conceding pressure, managing that pressure somehow, and the way teams ultimately manage that pressure is they give away penalties. Like the scrum is the perfect example of that. Can you really lose a scrum and not concede a penalty? That doesn’t happen anymore.
“How do you react to that? New Zealand, their DNA and how they play rugby is that they throw the ball around, and you see New Zealand at their best. And Ireland, they certainly throw the ball around. But it’s the skillset and ability to manipulate defenders and put the ball over and play games and outsmart defences, to be successful with that game plan, you would have to never ever drop the ball.
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“We saw Cian Prendergast drop two restarts and his front-rowers are looking at him going, ‘Do you know how much pressure we are under, do you know how painful it is what we are going to have to do here?’
“Now we are going to have three or four set-piece scrums around our 22 and then the backs are down a man and Jamison Gibson-Park misses it [the tackle on the try-scoring Feinberg-Mngomezulu]. It just feels like that is where South Africa want to go, and you have offered them an invite. What chance have you got?
“If skillset and ability to manipulate defenders is going to be your way to combat that type of play, you have to be incredibly accurate and incredibly thoughtful and smart around it. We were smart at times, but we were nowhere near accurate enough. If you are going to get parity up front, you have to be accurate and we weren’t.”