Tadhg Beirne: 'If we can keep going, I've no doubt we'll probably meet them again'

The Ireland man says the victory over the Springboks is a huge confidence booster.

HIGH AND MIGHTY: Tadhg Beirne of Ireland catches a restart in Paris on Saturday night. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

After 16 consecutive Test match victories and an array of impressive achievements within that Irish-record winning run, Tadhg Beirne feels he and his team-mates have earned the right to feel invincible.

Now the dynamic second row wants to convert that bullet-proof confidence in one another into a 80-minute performance.

Ireland’s epic 13-8 victory over defending champions South Africa at Stade de France on Saturday night confirmed this team’s credentials as genuine World Cup contenders, taking them five points clear at the top of Pool B with a closing match against Six Nations rivals Scotland on October 7 standing between them and qualification for the quarter-finals as group winners.

Beirne, who has played every minute of Ireland’s tournament campaign so far against Romania, Tonga and the South Africans, made it five consecutive 80-minute shifts for Andy Farrell including the summer Tests against England and Samoa. Yet after a rollercoaster battle with the Springboks in which Ireland had to overcome early set-piece difficulties, particularly at the lineout, the Munster star would like team performance levels to match that type of consistency and the players’ no-doubt belief in their abilities.

“It's a weird feeling within this squad, I wouldn't say it's weird but like I feel like we've earned it,” Beirne said. "When we go into the game I don't think there's anyone in this squad that feels like we're going to lose, there's just this aura within the squad where we know we can do it.

“We just have to deliver what we're good at and thankfully we've been doing that in patches for a lot of games and that's got us over the line. Going forward in this competition it's about making those patches bigger and bigger and hopefully into an 80-minute performance.” 

That aura within the squad will surely only grow stronger following this hard-fought win over the world number two team, though Beirne senses the two juggernauts are set to collide once more later in the competition.

"Yeah, it's a huge confidence booster. You know, we beat them back in November, they're going to grow as the competition goes on, if we can keep going in the competition I've no doubt we'll probably meet them again.

"They're a serious side, they have unbelievable individuals, it's all about how we learn from it and get better because as I said, it's about putting our patches together into an 80-minute performance and if we do that, we know we can beat any team in the world.” One of those unbelievable Springboks Beirne referenced was undoubtedly Munster team-mate RG Snyman whose impact off the bench stood out from an otherwise ineffective “Bomb Squad” of seven forwards among the defending champions’ eight-man replacements.

Which made Ireland’s overcoming of their early lineout problems all the more satisfying and Snyman’s Springbok jersey swapped with his own at full-time much more of a treasured memento.

“I think South Africa are, if not the best defensive lineout team, they have two who are what? 6ft 9in, 6ft 10in and good lifters? And big Snyman, we knew what they were going to do, we had a plan, they picked off a couple at the start, overall we turned it around in the end.” Somehow the pair even found time in the heart of battle to enjoy an amusing exchange, as Beirne explained when asked if there was much back and forth between Munster clubmates on both sides of the divide, Snyman having entered the fray alongside Jean Kleyn.

“There was one moment where RG cleared me out and he was on top of me and we just had a little laugh, but you move on. We had a chat after the game, there. In the heat of the moment, you’re not thinking about that stuff, that’s for sure.”