Jordi Murphy thrown in at the deep end

Jordi Murphy spent his day off diving amongst sharks but this evening at Newlands it will be a different beast occupying the Ireland flanker’s thoughts.

For all the excitement and understandable nervousness of being inside a cage submerged into a school of great white sharks off the southernmost point of Africa, facing the Springboks represents a another challenge again for Murphy as he prepares to go toe to toe with back-row powerhouses Duane Vermeulen, Francois Louw and Siya Kolisi.

While the shark experience was “something else” and “pretty amazing”, Murphy was at least offered the protection of a cage to view those magnificent killing machines of the deep.