Earls: Ireland have the belief to beat Blacks

He admits it wasn’t the easiest experience watching from the stands last weekend; Keith Earls lived every moment of that gut-wrenching 22-19 loss in Christchurch.

The Munster flyer missed out on last weekend’s Test with a pectoral muscle injury and for all intents and purposes should have been heading home with the usual recovery time stretching out to four weeks for that particular ailment.

On advice from his head coach, Earls decided to stick it out and see how the injury healed, and was miraculously declared fit on Thursday for the third and final test with the All Blacks.