One that got away. There was plenty more encouragement to be derived from Ireland's second game in George yesterday, especially for the first 65 minutes, but the tourists had the winning of this game before losing it, and knew it better than anyone.

Generally, the positives outweighed the negatives. Ireland's dirt-trackers had steel in their eyes as they met a physically-imposing home side head on. Around the fringes and on the gain line they gave as good as they got. Afterwards, it wasn't just the visitors who spoke of a physically hard game. So did the home side.

Early hits by the outstanding Trevor Brennan and Rob Henderson set the tone, inspiring a makeshift Irish pack to take up the gauntlet. They held their own in the scrums and did more than that in the line-outs; Malcolm O'Kelly moving up and down the line to provide quality ball as an alternative to the reliable Gabriel Fulcher at the front. What's more, they competed well on their opponents' throw, often disrupting it and sometimes winning it.

More encouraging than all of that was how Ireland fared on the gain line. They queued up for South West's big men and hit them big. And when it was their turn to rumble, Brennan, Anthony Foley, Peter Clohessy and the rest of the pack all punched holes. Outside of them, Rob Henderson made some good yardage, too. After two games, if nothing else, Ireland have crossed a huge psychological barrier on this tour.

The productive rucking was a clear reward for the intensity of the drills in training. Ireland's more varied re-start game, where O'Kelly and Brennan excelled, was eminently better, too.

All in all, the pack did enough to lay the platform for a victory, but the dirt-trackers are currently about 20 points less clinical and opportunistic than the shadow Test team. Chances weren't taken, while wrong options and mistakes were made. Ultimately, not enough backs played well enough.

Brian O'Meara's box-kicking was often excellent, though the ploy was possibly over-used, with David Humphreys' stance and positioning also telegraphing the tactic. But O'Meara provided no threat to the opposition back row. Nor does Humphreys seem to have full confidence in his own running game at the moment. He mixed some delightful passing with some wrong options and some nicely angled kicks with a miscued drop goal attempt and one awful up and under.

Humphreys has a real touch of class and had some lovely touches, though his return of five kicks out of eight compared to Elwood's perfect eight on Saturday reflects the latter's higher percentage game.

The halves might have played more of the game in opposition territory and moved it a bit more, although one suspects Humphreys could develop further under Warren Gatland on this tour. In mitigation, there wasn't as much on offer outside. The ever-adaptable Kevin Maggs did a host of things well, but Ciaran Clarke, Richie Wallace and Killian Keane had mixed days.

The flawed defensive organisation also betrayed how little time this unit has had together. South West cut through a few times and fairly flew along the wings and with a bit more composure might have scored a few more tries.

Barney Vorster, Jeff Wilson-like in appearance with his dancing feet and pace, was a regular thorn in the Irish side and is part of a rich vein of wingers currently operating in South Africa. His performance spoke volumes about his quality, particularly as he was on the end of a thumping Henderson hit in the third minute. An audible smack could be heard in the stand and the Wasps centre gave his team-mates a clenched fist in case they hadn't got the message.

Cue to Brennan. He nailed South West's scrum-half Freddy Robberts to force one of many turnovers. That was followed up by Humphreys' long re-start, which earned an attacking scrum and eventually saw the out-half cancel out Jacques Benade's opening penalty.

O'Meara's kick, Brennan's gather on the charge and Keane's burst over the gain line drew South West offside for Humphreys to land another penalty. After a shocker of a decision by the sub-standard referee, Mark Lawrence (who, admittedly, hurt South West almost as much as Ireland), Benade levelled matters again.

So it continued, Ireland failing to press home their greater control of the ball; O'Kelly's anger after the whistle costing Ireland another tap-over penalty. Finally, the South West pack put together a few rucks and Henderson seemed to shoot up, a nagging fault in his game, for Conrad Stoltz to cut through and gather his own chip ahead for a try.

Maggs's covering tackle on Vorster prevented another soon afterwards. Still Ireland applied more control. Off second phase ball going blind from a scrum, Clohessy picked up, dummied and charged to put South West on the back foot, O'Kelly and Brennan clearing the way for Foley to pick up and plunge over.

Brennan made an astonishing touchline tackle on Vorster after a quick 9-10-15 transfer off a scrum and the touch judges waited an age before confirming a dubious looking strike by Benade with the last kick of the half.

Another Brennan charge (the man was everywhere) led to Humphreys making it 14-all soon after the resumption. Ireland then withstood a home siege - tackles by Clarke on Vorster, Humphreys on Manie du Toit, and Jackman on Lodewyk Hattingh were all try-savers.

Humphreys landed two more penalties from three attempts and, thus, without playing brilliantly Ireland had moved 20-14 clear entering the last 15 minutes.

Intense pressure defence around the fringes penned South West inside their 22. Scrum to Ireland. One more score and that was surely that. The Irish may have been distracted by a deferred but impending double substitution. More pertinently, Clohessy lost his footing and O'Meara declined to pick up from a back-pedalling scrum. From the turnover, South West broke out. After the double substitution of Brennan and Clohessy, the wheels came off.

John Hayes couldn't lever himself under Sias Wagner and a scrum that hadn't been able to practise together because of the unavailability of scrummaging machines came apart. Maggs's brilliant covering tackle on du Toit counted for nothing as the ensuing Irish scrum inched back and the ball popped out on the openside for Robberts to pounce.

Now trailing, two more substitutions in the backs left Ireland looking even more ragged. In the end, only eight Irish players finished the game in the positions they started.

While South West played it cute - Benade continually kicked for position and tacked on insurance points - Ireland played catch up as the supply dried up from a pack who were suddenly being out-muscled everywhere.

Definitely one that got away.