Sunday 26 June 2016 07:03, UK
Ireland captain Rory Best admits South Africa were too clinical as they claimed a 19-13 victory in the third and final Test in Port Elizabeth on Saturday.
Springboks fly-half Elton Jantjies kicked 11 points to help guide his side to victory after JP Pietersen's try had put the hosts in control shorty after half time.
Ireland fought valiantly throughout the match and took the lead midway through the first half when Luke Marshall touched down.
However, it was not enough to prevent a resolute South Africa side, who sealed a 2-1 series victory on home turf.
Best praised his side's fighting spirit after the final whistle but acknowledged the Springboks deserved to win the game.
"It's been a great series but a really, really tough series," said Best. "It's exactly what we thought it would be.
"Nothing was ever given easily, we knew we had to defend really well. They're a top side, we came here to win a series, we've fallen short twice.
"Our boys have fought valiantly and we've really put everything in. Unfortunately in the last two Tests, the Springboks have just been a little bit more clinical."
Despite losing the series, Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt is happy with his side's performance in all three Test matches.
Ireland defeated the Boks 26-20 in Cape Town two weeks ago before narrowly losing 32-26 in Johannesburg last weekend.
"It's not a lost cause," he said. "Three six-point results; two of them unfortunately didn't go our way.
"If you'd offered me one win and a couple of other close results like that before the tour, I probably would have taken it because there's a little bit of history there but at the same time when you get as close as we did, it's disappointing."
Schmidt was also coy on the standard of refereeing in the series, with CJ Stander having been sent off in the opening Test, while home player Willie Le Roux escaped with a yellow card in the finale for a similar offence.
"I don't really make comments on those incidents, other people deal with them and I probably would still say we were disappointed with CJ's red card in the first game but I haven't got any comment to offer really on the incident this evening," he said.
"Look, we spent six hours going back through the game to deliver our referee report. We send that back and we get a bit of feedback from referees.
"We use the official channels to comment, we don't comment publicly about referee performance because they are an incredibly important part of the game, they have an incredibly difficult job to do and I think they go out to do it as best they can."
