As Ireland reveled in the latest addition to its ever-expanding portfolio of prize-fight successes, and South Africa wrestled with the rare feeling of really losing a World Cup match, it was difficult not to conclude that this was just what the tournament required.

On Thursday, France flirted with 100 points against Namibia, a demolition job overshadowed by rising suspicions that the World Cup’s poster boy, Antoine Dupont, was set to leave.

Argentina’s win over Samoa in Saint-Etienne on Friday will be short-lived, while the media who traveled to Saint Denis for the weekend’s main event were greeted by countless televisions showing a Henry Arundell-inspired England crushing Chile, the tournament’s lowest-ranked side.

So it was up to the world’s top two sides to deliver a rousing Test encounter that gave the tournament a much-needed shot in the arm just 24 hours before Australia, another injured southern hemisphere titan, takes on Wales in Lyon.

Getting past the hype is not a foreign concept in Ireland. They defeated France in a thrilling Six Nations match in Dublin in February, but their first-ever World Cup encounter with the Springboks took things to a whole new level as the champions and challengers electrified the Stade de France.