Ireland have 'built up nicely' ahead of Springboks test says Simon Easterby
Easterby and Tadhg Beirne and Stuart McCloskey during an Ireland rugby squad training session at Complexe de la Chambrerie in Tours, France. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Ireland believe they possess multiple ways of winning Test matches and will use of any one of them to get the job done against South Africa on Saturday night.
The biggest challenge of their World Cup campaign is looming when Grand Slam winners Ireland meet defending champions South Africa at Stade de France in a highly anticipated sell-out Pool B clash in northern Paris but Andy Farrell’s squad have been building incrementally for this challenge in order to plot their passage to the quarter-finals and beyond.
Last summer’s history-making series win in New Zealand, November’s victory over the Springboks in Dublin and this year’s Six Nations clean sweep have all been about building momentum and belief ahead of this clash but assistant coach Simon Easterby suggested some lesser achievements, not least Ireland’s last three games, have also provided valuable lessons about getting over the line this weekend.
The defence coach referenced the narrow pre-tournament win over Samoa in persistent driving rain on August 26, and the big wins so far of this pool phase, 82-8 over Romania and 59-16 against Tonga, as examples of the varying routes to victory when asked yesterday if this Saturday’s showdown was just about winning rather than the quality of the performance.
“We know that when we play well and we play a certain way that we're going to be difficult to play against and difficult to beat,” Easterby said.
“We'll be looking to implement a lot of the stuff that you'll have seen over the last couple of years in what we do on Saturday as we have tried to do in the Tonga and Romania games.
“We haven't had to win ugly maybe too many times. I thought what we did against Samoa in Bayonne was another way of winning a game when the conditions weren't suited to playing with width and too much ball in hand.
“We found a way to win through our forward pack dominating in the latter stages of the game and I think you're going to have to do that at certain times in every game.
“It will be great if we could throw the ball around and score plenty of tries but we know that we have to do things in the moment and make sure we're adaptable and that might mean playing certain ways in certain parts of the game.”
Easterby declared himself satisfied with the progress made in the last two games, when Ireland have scored a combined 20 tries, conceding just two but was equivocal when asked whether people should be talking Ireland up more ahead of their South African contest.
“It's a strange one. I think everyone knows this game was always going to be the big game that we had in the first three rounds, we've built up nicely through Romania and Tonga, we've ironed out a few things in our attack, the same defensively.
“We were tested way more against Tonga. I think we always knew that this was going to be the pivotal game leading up to Scotland two weeks after. We're just going about our business at the moment.
“I guess press and media and supporters in particular are speculating about what they might bring. We obviously are really confident and trust in what we've been doing, not just recently but in the last year and a half, two years and this is what we've been building towards.
"Hopefully we will see plenty of that on Saturday as well.”
Jack Conan appears likely to miss out on selection but Dan Sheehan and Finlay Bealham are both on course to be in the mix for Stade de France.
Easterby said that while Conan was progressing in his comeback from a foot injury sustained on August 5 against Italy, Saturday night’s match may come too soon for the No.8 to makes his first appearance of the tournament.
“Everyone trained really well today, to be honest,” Easterby said. “Jack's probably the only one that's slightly behind in terms of being able to get himself right for the weekend.
“He's recovering well as the medics and conditioners get him up to speed and he's probably on track for where we thought he'd be at this stage. He's done really well, we're happy with his progress.
"Finlay and Dan both trained really well today, so they're back in the mix."
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