Ireland will have to deal with the old Boks while being wary of the new Boks

The Boks might lack the finesse of France, or the expansive ability of the All Blacks, but they make up for it with sheer bloody-mindedness and wincingly brutal confrontations

Tadhg Beirne speaking at a press conference before the clash with South Africa

Ireland lock Tadhg Beirne knows that when the Six Nations champions meet the world champion Springboks at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday they will have to go to some uncomfortable places.

No team turns rugby into a physical conflict on quite the same scale as the Boks. They might lack the finesse of France, or the expansive ability of the All Blacks, but they make up for it with sheer bloody-mindedness and wincingly brutal confrontations.

There is no getting away from it. When the Boks lose, particularly at home, it’s because the opponents at the very least, matched the physical intensity.

“Like every Test game, every time we come up against South Africa it's incredibly physical and it's no different this time,” Beirne rightly pointed out.

“We're focused on that physical battle, we're focused on how we can improve from the Six Nations and hopefully we'll be able to show that on Saturday.” 

The physicality the Boks bring is not just in the contact area - tackles and breakdowns - which is expected, but also in the set piece.

Their scrum is without question the best in the world, but the Boks lineout is also a massive weapon, both with or without the ball.

During last year’s pool B World Cup clash in Paris, Ireland’s lineout struggled, yet they managed a 13-8 win. On the highveld, against a fired up Boks at home, Ireland cannot afford such largesse on their own ball again.

“I suppose we're probably coming up against the best defensive lineout in the world,” Beirne said. “They've shown that multiple times over the last couple of years.

“They have big men across their whole team, it's a big focus for us. I don't think any of the lineout callings during the World Cup were poor, it's just that they defended well.

“Again, it's just another area we need to be completely dialled in on for Saturday.” And what questions do they ask that other teams don’t?

“The most obvious one is your physicality, they've got a really big pack in general,” Beirne said. “They do look to bully you, they go after a lot of rucks whether it's poaching or trying to bully those rucks to get the ball back or even just make it scrappy.

“They want to make the game scrappy by getting into an arm wrestle.

“Some teams don't want that, they want to just play ball and run it around you. But South Africa are looking to hit it up, bully us up front and then try to get out wide of us.

“That's going to be a challenge for us and we're looking forward to it.” While there is a strange sort of comfort in knowing what the Boks bring, there will be a prickle of nerves at the unknowns.

The Boks have employed former All Black flyhalf Tony Brown to extract more from their new breed of attacking players such as Kurt-Lee Arendse and new starlet Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, as well as from old heads such as Handre Pollard and Damian de Allende.

The world champions only started on the new path a few weeks ago, but already there is a sense that they have changed their mindset. It will be a frightening prospect if the Boks evolve into a team as comfortable with the ball, as they are without it.

Beirne admitted that the Boks’ changing approach hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“They're very good at knockout rugby and they've proven that in the last two World Cups and they've proven that by grinding out wins by one score,” Beirne said.

“It's a credit to them, they stick to their plan really well and they're a well-drilled team in terms of what they're trying to get out of the game.

“We can expect something different of course, they've new coaches going in there and even just from the game against Wales you could see they are trying to be a bit more expansive.

“They're trying to play a bit more than they were a year ago for sure.

“It does seem like they're more expansive, I wouldn't think they'll change much defensively.

“Fla (new Bok defence coach Jerry Flannery) worked under Jacques (Nienaber), so I think he's bringing in a very similar defence system that he saw him use for Munster and the Springboks.

“But definitely, attack wise you could see straight away against Wales that they were more expansive for sure.”