As published a few days back over at Balls.ie: http://www.balls.ie/rugby/balls-ie-rugby-nerds-panel-making-sense-of-the-loss-to-the-springboks/

Good

The first half

Playing against a South African team using more than a few softening up tactics against certain members of the Irish team, Ireland kept their heads admirably and took the points when they were offered.

Mike McCarthy

The Connacht man demonstrated power, athleticism and aggression and comfortably outshone the much-hyped Eben Etzebeth.

Simon Zebo

Never looked entirely comfortable in his positioning leading to him hitting the line far too deep on occasion. However, it’s one cap out of position for a player who’s still at the start of his international career. So while Rob Kearney won’t have felt intimidated by Zebo’s performance the Munsterman didn’t rule himself out of future starts in the position.

Conor Murray wasn’t awful

His kicking continued to be ill-judged and he simply must be trained to remove his step before releasing the pass, at least on occasion. However, Murray’s play on Saturday demonstrated a level of general urgency that had been missing for some time. Reddan or Marshall would still have been better options for a team selected to play a quick game, but Murray didn’t let himself down.

Bad

Second half leadership

After the Springboks had come out firing in the second half, Ireland looked distinctly rattled. The final fifteen minutes of the game badly needed somebody to give the Irish team a sense of calmness and direction but that did not happen. Instead when Ireland got their hands on the ball there was phase after futile phase without any real danger of breaching the green line in front of them. This played into the South Africans’ hands, who patiently soaked up pressure and committed minimal men to the breakdown until they saw an Irish player stray too far away from his support then pouncing upon him with immediate and wonderful aggression. Jamie Heaslip took the yellow card for an Irish maul that was being frogmarched towards its own line; that ten minutes off the field should have given him the opportunity to see what was going on from afar and try to fix it. The captain’s armband for a team without O’Driscoll, Best or O’Connell is still definitely up for grabs.

Andrew Trimble

Big and strong he may be but there is a lack of soundness in Trimble’s overall game that can be exposed against strong opposition. It was so on Saturday. Trimble’s efforts under any sort of kick are becoming difficult to watch.

Ronan O’Gara

Kicking the ball away in that manner when the clock was dead… If that had been Paddy Jackson, Ian Madigan or Ian Keatley the offending player would have been immediately slated as a cocky young buck who should be given a bollocking afterwards by the senior squad members for doing something so monumentally ill-judged.