Farrell hails Springboks as Ireland's gold standard test

NEXT CHALLENGE: Ireland head coach Andy Farrell after the Guinness Six Nations match. Pic: Liam McBurney, PA Wire 

Andy Farrell proclaimed South Africa the best in the world as he looked forward to Ireland’s summer Test series with the all-conquering Springboks.

The back-to-back Guinness Six Nations champions will travel to Johannesburg at the end of June to play the 2019 and 2023 World Cup winners in two Tests, now coached once more by Rassie Erasmus, in the thin air at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria on July 6 and down at sea level at Durban’s King’s Park a week later.

It will be Ireland’s first tour to South Africa since 2016, Joe Schmidt’s team winning the first Test in Cape Town in Farrell’s first match as defence coach, but losing the series 2-1, though the Springboks have not won since, losing November Tests in Dublin in 2017 and 2022 and a World Cup pool game in Paris last September.

Yet South Africa’s successful World Cup defence in France last autumn under Jacques Niebaber, now with Leinster, marks them out as the gold standard as far as the Irish boss is concerned.

"It doesn't get any more difficult, does it, or any more exciting than that,” Farrell said following Ireland’s title-clinching 17-13 victory over Scotland on Saturday night.

“All you want is an opportunity to put yourself out there against the best and South Africa are 100 per cent the best. So being able to go out there and test ourselves over there - we’ve managed to win one game over there before - to be able to play two games and test ourselves will be great for our development going forward.” 

The Ireland head coach said there was still plenty of potential left in his squad as they continued to bed in new players in the absence of former captain and fly-half Johnny Sexton and strengthen squad depth.

“To be consistently at your best is probably impossible but that is what we’re going after, like I keep on saying. But when class players drop out of the squad, it’s always going to take time to build back up and if you can do that winning, or learning from the experiences like at Twickenham or whatever, then that’s all well and good.

“But the reality is that there’s plenty more in us and there has to be for what’s coming for the rest of the year.” 

Farrell had spent the morning of the Scotland match watching his son Gabriel playing schools rugby for Blackrock College Under-13s and he revealed that their victory over rivals St Michael’s had thrown down the gauntlet ahead of the Six Nations finale.

“I was watching Michael's versus Blackrock this morning. Blackrock won by the way. I was actually under pressure. I actually said to him after the game that ‘you put us under pressure’ because imagine him winning this morning and us not winning, I’d have been massively in trouble.

“It was nice to take the pressure off a little bit and get out there this morning and see some junior rugby.”