Caelan Doris says Ireland are good enough to turn things around quickly and get a victory against world champions South Africa next weekend.
The visitors came up seven points short at Pretoria as a tense and tight game opened up in the last quarter with both sides running in a brace of tries in that period.
But Ireland had left themselves with too much to do, and now must put the defeat behind them quickly ahead of the second Test in Durban on Saturday.
“I think that’s why it’s frustrating because we feel we’re definitely good enough to get a win away from home in a pretty hostile environment,” Doris said afterwards.
“We relish that challenge and it’s definitely frustrating not coming out on top but the belief if still there and we’re going to rock into the week and not dwell on the loss.”
Echoing head coach Andy Farrell, Doris admitted that they left themselves a lot to do after a slow start, with Kurt-Lee Arendse’s try inside two minutes setting the Springboks on their way.
Jamie Osborne’s try on his senior debut kept Ireland in it – five down at the break – but an intense third quarter from both sides led into a frantic final 20 minutes.
Cheslin Kolbe put the hosts clear after an error from James Lowe, only for Conor Murray to get in under the posts to leave it as a one-score game.
South Africa were then awarded a penalty try, after demolishing Ireland in a scrum, before Ryan Baird got a late consolation in the left corner.
“A good bit of frustration about how we went in the first half,” Doris added.
“Some of our discipline – they miss two or three shots at goal so we were lucky with that to be able to hang in, one score in the game.
“Definitely a lot of frustration but it’s a big week coming up so we can’t dwell on it too much. We have to look forward and try to fix some of the things that didn’t go right for us today and try to get a win next week.”
On Farrell’s half-time message, Doris continued: “Play in the right areas, work a little bit harder, everyone be one second quicker in attack, play on top of them a bit more, things like that.
“We did that a little bit better in the second half and it was back and forth, a bit of pinball. They scored quickly, we scored quickly, but it’s onto next week.”