Schmidt’s evolving gameplan faces first of three big tests

Ireland take one more step along the road in Dublin this evening when their credentials as one of the world’s top four teams are tested by old rivals South Africa.

There were times when this fixture would have been greeted by a sense of foreboding at the prospect of a Springbok steamroller rumbling down Lansdowne Road but though today’s visitors for this opening Test of November’s Guinness Series undoubtedly still pack a powerful punch, it is perhaps Allister Coetzee’s team that has more of a point to prove at the Aviva Stadium.

Having succumbed to Joe Schmidt’s Ireland team, reduced to 14 men, at their hallowed Newlands in Cape Town in June 2016 and narrowly avoided a first series defeat on home soil on that tour, South Africa’s stock has slipped steadily in the subsequent 17 months.