Robin Peterson celebrates after taking the key wicket of Kevin O'Brien

Ireland captain William Porterfield refused to be downcast after their 131-run defeat at the hands of South Africa knocked them out of the World Cup.

Ireland now cannot qualify for the quarter-finals, even though they still have to play the Netherlands on Friday.

"We've shown a lot of competitive spirit," said Porterfield. "Lots of the games went to the last 10 overs.

"We've put ourselves in winning positions and that is what we'll take from this tournament. It's been good."

Ireland needed a win against Graeme Smith's side to stand any chance of reaching the last eight and they started well, reducing the Proteas to 117-5 at one stage.

But JP Duminy struck 99 for South Africa to lead them to 272-7 in their 50 overs and Ireland got nowhere near in their reply as they were bowled out for 141 in the 34th over.

It was an anomalous performance in comparison to the rest of Ireland's campaign after they suffered narrow defeats at the hands of Bangladesh, India, and West Indies and beat England in a thrilling run chase, but Porterfield said he was pleased with much of how the game unfolded.

"We started off pretty well," he added. "We got a couple of wickets up front. It's always important to get wickets to peg them back and I thought we did that pretty much throughout.

"We were happy enough at half-time as chasing 270 wasn't out of our reach. But it's just that we lost wickets."

South Africa skipper Smith was pleased with his team's middle order as they became the first team from Group B to secure a quarter-final berth.

"We put ourselves under pressure with some stupid run-outs but JP [Duminy] played a really good knock under pressure," said Smith.

"Coming into the tournament there was a question mark over our lower-middle order but the guys there have played superbly well in the last two games.

"We've got one game left against Bangladesh and then hopefully three good games in the knock-out stages."

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