There are five things that may influence the result of Saturday's second Test between the Springboks and Ireland in Durban.
Raising the flags
Away from the hard lands of the highveld, Durban will present the players softer underfoot conditions on Saturday.
That should make for another closely contested clash which will sharpen the focus on the goal kickers.
Neither Handré Pollard nor Jack Crowley convinced off the kicking tee in the first Test and the scrutiny on them will be intense on Saturday.
The good news for the Boks is Pollard, who averages 10.11 across his 70 Tests, has played just two Tests in Durban, his average at the South African coast mirrors that collectively elsewhere.
Dual blows
Ireland bear psychological and physical scars from the battle in Pretoria.
Failing to win the first Test means the Durban clash becomes a salvage job and that task is made greater by the absence of key personnel.
Hooker Dan Sheehan and scrumhalf Craig Casey's absence will be keenly felt and to compound matters the tourists are sweating on the availability of centre Robbie Henshaw, who like Casey, took a knock to the head in Pretoria.
Not far off
Though they may not have a clean bill of health, Ireland will take to the second Test emboldened in the belief they did not get the rub of the green in the first Test.
Untimely injuries cost them and there were a number of crucial decisions by the match officials that might have gone a different way on another day.
That is not to say the decisions were wrong, but the vicissitudes of the modern game are such that different officials in a different venue might have arrived at different conclusions.
Ireland however also know they will have to play better and be more clinical if they are to record a second ever win against the Boks on South African soil.
Standing firm
Though, on the balance of the first Test, perhaps they marginally had the better of the Boks at scrum time, the demolition Ireland suffered in the scrum that mattered at the end of the Loftus match will haunt them.
The tourists were the beneficiaries of some technical rulings, particularly in the first half, but when the game was up for grabs the Bok pack, ignited by the Bomb Squad, delivered the killer blow.
Ireland will need to stand firm to deny the Boks a launch pad to success in the second Test.
Final surge
Series honours may be beyond Ireland but they want to finish their season on a high in Durban.
It has been a season that for them may seem interminable. The Rugby World Cup brought a pool stages win over South Africa but they later watched the Springboks lift the trophy they so deeply covet.
They claimed the Six Nations trophy but their top club teams failed to lift the silverware that matters.
Given what happened at Loftus they will not lack courage, but from somewhere they will need to summon energy at the end of a topsy-turvy season.
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