Ireland were deserved winners and underlined their status as the number one ranked side in the world as they were able to withstand the Springbok pressure and take the chances they created.
By contrast, South Africa had numerous entries into the Ireland 22 but a mixture of excellent defence and their own inaccuracy proved costly as they slipped to a first World Cup defeat in nine games.
They were also not helped by a missed conversion and penalty from flyhalf Manie Libbok and two missed penalties by scrumhalf Faf de Klerk that meant they left 11 points out there.
"Hats off to Ireland, we missed a couple of points off the tee but I won't say it's only goal-kicking (that was the problem)," coach Jacques Nienaber said.
"We lost two balls close to the Ireland tryline and we had another opportunity late on in the game. Ireland were better than us on the night, no complaints.
"We have got a big game in eight days against Tonga to get out of the pool. From a team perspective, we will have got good preparation from this game, just unfortunately not the result."
Nienaber said the defeat did not in any way diminish their belief that they could retain their World Cup crown.
"Definitely we can still win it. We played against the number one team in the world and we lost by five points. So the margins are very small."
Captain Siya Kolisi also did not put the blame for the defeat on poor kicking alone.
"We didn't lose the game in one department," he said. "We cannot blame one specific area, we created such good opportunities.
"If you don't take those opportunities in a game like this (you will lose). The intensity of the match is what we needed, a lot of players haven't played a game with this intensity (in a while)."
Kolisi said the team would move on quickly from the defeat and look ahead to Tonga in Marseille next Sunday.
"If we dwell too much on what happened today, we forget to perform next week," he said.
