Brian O'Driscoll revealed Ireland have recovered from being in a "dark place" to celebrate an unbeaten year.
Ireland skipper hails progress his side have made
Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll revealed his team have recovered from being in a "dark place" to celebrate an unbeaten year, capped by their victory over South Africa.
The Irish finished their autumn internationals campaign on the ultimate high with a 15-10 victory over world champions South Africa at Croke Park, marking their 10th match without defeat.
The Grand Slam champions were thrashed 22-3 by New Zealand last November and O'Driscoll reflected on how far the team has come on since those more gloomy times.
Progress
"This win was very pleasing - it's all about continuing to progress," said O'Driscoll.
"We were in a dark place this time last year and we did a lot of soul searching and there was huge honesty.
"To turn it around as quickly as we have done is a huge credit to everyone involved, not just players but management too.
"It's a huge credit to everyone involved that we've gone a calendar year undefeated."
Jonathan Sexton, who started ahead of veteran Ronan O'Gara, slotted five penalties against the Springboks on what was only his second Test appearance, but head coach Declan Kidney was reluctant to deal out too much praise to the fly-half.
"We might have won by more if Ronan was playing. We said 12 months ago we're trying to develop a squad," said Kidney.
"We see it as a blessing that we have a world-class fly-half and an up and coming fly-half. We'll need both of them."
The head coach also revealed that the win, which was Ireland's third successive home triumph against South Africa, had been an educational experience.
"We finished the series with a win which is good for confidence and we're looking forward to coming back for the Six Nations," added Kidney.
"We like to play these Tri-Nations teams as often as we can. We learnt more about ourselves today."
Aggressive
Springboks fly-half Morne Steyn missed three penalties and captain John Smit admitted his side need to be more aggressive in their attack.
"You have to kick your penalties. They took their chances but we didn't," said Smit.
"We did a lot of damage in the scrum and that gave us a huge amount of impetus.
"But our lineouts and kicking let us down but ironically those have been our strengths this year."
The match marked the end of an exhausting yet triumphant year for South Africa and coach Peter de Villiers confessed fatigue had played a part in the loss.
"We want to honour rugby and do the best we can," he said. "If we'd picked the second team people would have thought we're looking down on them but maybe we should have rested a few senior players.
"We must regroup and build on what we've achieved this year."
