DUBLIN — Andy Farrell described Ireland’s 23-14 defeat to South Africa as “chaotic” and said he’d never experienced a Test match quite like it.

Ireland were on the wrong end of the referee and received five cards in a rollercoaster of a match. At one stage Ireland were down to 12 men, as the Springboks ended their 13-year wait for a win in Dublin.

Ireland started well, but it was the Boks who struck first through Damian Willemse. But then Irish discipline lapsed, with James Ryan showed a yellow card — later upgraded to a 20-minute red — while Sam Prendergast, Jack Crowley and Andrew Porter were all sin-binned in the first half.

Dan Sheehan scored for Ireland in the first 40, but a score from Cobus Reinach and a penalty try saw the Boks head into the break 19-7 up.

The second half was more of the same. Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu scored a wonderful try after the break, Prendergast slotted two penalties for the hosts, with Paddy McCarthy and Grant Williams also seeing yellow.

When Farrell was asked if he felt Ireland’s first half performance was shambolic, he said: “I say chaotic. I won’t repeat your word, I think you’re wrong.

“I haven’t seen a game like that ever. You look at yourself and why things have happened and we’ll make sure we’ll learn the lessons from that. I’m unbelievably proud.”

Farrell said Ireland made some “stupid errors” but said his team must use this match as a lesson.

“Well, if you can’t learn from that, then you’re in the wrong place, really,” Farrell said. “For all sorts of reasons, I thought going down to 12 men, how the lads came out and showed the bottle for the country, certainly in that first ten minutes of that second half, it was absolutely amazing.

“And I think you could see with the crowd, the effort that they put in, that the crowd recognised that and supported them. “To be able to win a second-half 6-5 under those type of circumstances, I know it doesn’t tell a full story of the second-half, but it’s actually amazing, really, that that happened, or that occurred.

“The lessons to learn are, when you fight so hard to give yourself a chance, and you’re at 72 minutes, trying to overplay probably in your own 22, you’ve still got time on the clock to put ourselves back in the right field positions.

“We overplayed a little bit and wasted a little bit of time, but then we found a way, and with four minutes to go, we had a glaring chance to score a try under the post, and (if) we scored that with four minutes to go, who knows what could have happened with a little bit of momentum, but we couldn’t do that, so all credit has to go to South Africa.”

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Farrell and Caelan Doris both felt Feinberg-Mngomezulu should’ve faced a harsher sanction for an earlier high tackle, but Doris was left agreeing with Farrell’s assessment of the match.

“Chaotic is the word that sums it up, definitely. Like Faz’s reference earlier, I’m proud of the fight, the courage, the character that we showed at times,” he said.

“I do think, obviously, you want that to transfer into points and results, but I do think it’s going to stand to us going forward, definitely.”

Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus was delighted with the win as they triumphed on Dublin soil for the first time since 2012. “Ireland had previously dominated us as a group,” Erasmus said.

“We know they’re still up against us [overall], so we won’t get carried away with it. We were thankful we managed to beat them here. It’s been a long season for us. We are proud after a long season to grind through a win against a team like them at home.

“I do think we were dominant in the scrums. We’ve been part of a few games that were like this, where we had to grind it out with 14 men.

“I thought we were dominant for most parts of the game. Today it was hectic and difficult to manage and to understand who was off and who was on, who had an HIA and that’s Test match rugby at the highest level.”

The Boks had extra reason to celebrate with Malcolm Marx crowned World Rugby men’s player of the year. “It hasn’t really sunk in,” Marx said.

“To be fair this is achieved because of the team environment. Things like this happen because of the group we have.

“This isn’t just for me — it’s a team award for those support and the structures we have. It’s not for me, it’s for our team and South Africa.”