Joe Schmidt was expected to emerge from the locker-room with a grin like the cat that got the cream. Nobody, save the coach and his crew, had expected the scoreline in Aviva Stadium. But there was reservation in his mood. Schmidt, although proud of his side's performance, was not racing ahead of himself. No World Cup won yet but plenty to push his team towards bigger goals.

“I’m delighted with the performance. I don’t think you could ask too much more from a courage perspective. I think there are a number of players who really stood up physically to what was going to be a really tough assignment.

“The first reflection I had is South Africa scored at approximately the same time as the All Blacks did (last year). We want to be a team that goes for 85 minutes. It certainly atones for how we felt at the end of the Guinness Series last year (after losing to New Zealand).

“You have to physically deliver and if the line is just three metres behind, you have to man up and I think the players did that incredibly well,” added Schmidt.

“Paul (O’Connell) and the players put a lot of work into having a clear strategy. That strategy was well delivered by the players but the physicality they delivered allowed us to stay in the game.

Schmidt praised his new midfield pairing, adding: "I think the two centres did incredibly well. Robbie gave us gain line. Jared ran great support lines for Rob Kearney. That's the sort of intelligence you want in a backline because we are very used to having great intelligence in the backline."

Schmidt is hoping to have Chris Henry back in action for next weekend's clash against Georgia after the Ulster openside pulled out of the game due to illness.

“Chris wasn’t well this morning at 8.30. We believe he has a virus and it meant he wasn’t capable of playing,” said Schmidt. “Hopefully he’ll be back in camp on Monday or Tuesday. This time last year he limped off with a hamstring and missed the rest of the series.”

Captain Paul O'Connell hailed a "massive" victory for Ireland but he also admitted there were plenty of things his side need to improve on.

The Munster man admitted the win was one of the best of his career, but also acknowledged it was a far from perfect performance from the reigning Six Nations champions.

He said: “It’s right up there (in my career), it’s a very important win for us. We made a lot of mistakes out there but I think we were clever at times as well, we scored two very good tries.

“It’s a massive win, but I suppose that’s all it is, a Test win.

“To get it against one of the big southern hemisphere teams is massive for us, we spoke before the autumn that we’d like to beat one of the southern hemisphere teams and to get that done today was brilliant.”

Looking ahead, the 35-year-old lock added: “We speak all the time about being able to improve week on week, month on month, campaign on campaign and I think unfortunately when we look back on that there will be a lot of things to improve on; the scrum, lineout . . .

“There’s a lot of things to improve on and that’s what we’ll try to do.”

Springboks coach Heyneke Meyer was gracious in defeat. A yellow card and many mistakes went against his side but he agreed Ireland were better on the day. And no, he wasn't surprised by Ireland's performance.

“We’re disappointed,” said Meyer. “We said Ireland was a quality side and that’s why they are Six Nations champs. They used their chances and kept the ball and we kept making mistakes. All credit to them.

“We need quick ball,” said Meyer. “Obviously I’m disappointed with the way we played. We’re much better than that. I knew it was going to be tough like all the games here. I guess they were the better side tonight. We just couldn’t keep the ball.

“The strange thing is the training sessions before the game was probably the best sessions since I’ve become Springboks coach. But we played a world class team.”

And the yellow card in the second half?

“It’s not an excuse. We could use it as an excuse but I don’t want to. Ireland were the better team.”

Captain Jean de Villiers was equally gracious to Ireland but saw his team as not rising to the standards they expect.

“The things we could work on is the scrum, tactical kicking and lineouts and we did that well,” said de Villiers. “What we couldn’t do was hang onto the ball. If you can hold on to the ball for more than two or three phases and we couldn’t do that. You have to give credit to Ireland. They got the ball in our half and they took their chances and we couldn’t catch up.

“We as players need to take responsibility for this performance. It was not good enough for the Springbok jersey but I want to reiterate Ireland played very well and we’ll take it on the chin.”