Ulster's Nick Timoney dismisses suggestions rugby is damaged after Ireland's defeat against South Africa in Dublin

Timoney featured in two of Ireland’s four internationals but sat out the Springboks clash which saw Andy Farrell’s side ship a red and four yellow cards with the game taking 132 minutes.

The backrow will start in Ulster’s URC game against Benetton on Friday night as Richie Murphy’s side look to bounce back after defeat to the Lions before the international break.

Timoney said: “I get the complaint that, you know, obviously people all think they want quick games and stuff, but I also feel like Saturday's game was one of the best I've watched in a while as well for obviously a different set of reasons.

“I kind of always said, rugby to the actual rules of it is like a crazy game and refereeing it is borderline impossible and sticking to it.

“We were just all in too deep by the time... the game was too ingrained in all of us by the time we actually realised half these rules were there and we might actually need to stick to them, but that's part of it.

“That seems to be a large part of today's game – being successful – is can you actually be strict on yourselves? Can you adhere to as many of those [rules] as possible? It's not going to be possible to ever play, or very unlikely to play a game where your team's not giving away some penalties or some knock-ons, or the odd card nowadays; in rugby it’s inevitable.

“I think a lot of the stuff that people are very upset about kind of levels out over time, the cards and stuff… and it is just about avoiding as many of them as possible, and maybe that's a larger part of what being a good rugby team or a good rugby player is nowadays… a lot of the cards these days, the vast, vast majority, there's no intent in the way that to get red-carded 15 years ago, you had to try and go out and hurt someone or do something pretty bad.

“That obviously isn't the case anymore but being a good player now is obviously part of that, is avoiding all that stuff, and it is doable – not maybe 100% of the time – but for large parts of the time it is, and if that's an adaptation that rugby kind of feels needs to happen on behalf of the teams and players rather than on behalf of the rules, then I think that's just the way things are going.”

Timoney feels players can adopt to long games.

“Saturday was a great example of sort of differing spectrums of how teams want to play rugby and the Springboks obviously, not that they want to slow the game down necessarily, but they want to scrum. And that is going to slow the game down by definition, and if they have an advantage there, they're going to take it to its extreme.

“Two weeks previous when we were playing, we played Japan; the first half, I don't know what the actual stats are, but they were taking quick line-outs every two minutes, the balls and playing non-stop.

“That might be their way of making the game go in your advantage, so there are certain teams that are going to play to certain strengths and not every game is going to be 132 minutes, but obviously, in extreme scenarios, it can happen.”

“I guess it would be more on making sure all areas of your game are robust enough that you don't fall victim to some of the ones we did in the weekend.”

Ulster: J Stockdale; R Baloucoune, J Hume, J Postlethwaite, W Kok; J Murphy, N Doak; S Crean, T Stewart, S Wilson, I Henderson (capt), D McCann, N Timoney, J Augustus.

Replacements: R Herring, C Reid, T O'Toole, M Dalton, B Ward, D Shanahan, J Flannery, S Moore.