Farrell relishes shot at 'best in the world' South Africa after Ireland’s statement win

Now that they've got out of their own way and stepped up their performance level, Ireland's clash with South Africa is even more mouthwatering

Andy Farrell: “We're a very good side. There's no doubt about that." Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

Autumn International: Ireland 46 Australia 19

ALL Andy Farrell asked for from his Ireland players was to stop overthinking things and start bringing out the best in themselves, and the penny has dropped in timely fashion with South Africa next up in Dublin.

Saturday night’s trouncing of Australia was a welcome return to form as Ireland rediscovered the power of clarity, or as their head coach has often put it in recent weeks, stopped “getting in the way of ourselves”. That had been the fundamental problem in disappointingly inconsistent performances against New Zealand in defeat and Japan in victory but in the midst of a downpour at Aviva Stadium, Ireland saw the light.

A hat-trick of tries inside the opening 29 minutes from the effervescent Mack Hansen in his first start as a Test full-back came off the back of a re-energised attack. And when Australia, whose batteries appeared to be running extremely low in their 14th Test match since the end of June, summoned some fight towards half-time to make it a 19-14 game at the interval, Ireland found a way to wrestle back momentum, extending their lead through trademark diligence in possession and the composure of Sam Prendergast to deliver a timely drop goal on 58 minutes. 

The fly-half’s replacement Jack Crowley extended the home lead with a penalty soon after before captain Caelan Doris added Ireland’s fourth. The Wallabies extracted a final ounce of fight with their third try from replacement hooker Billy Pollard but a yellow card for lock Nick Frost on 70 minutes was the last straw for Joe Schmidt’s side and Ryan Baird and Robbie Henshaw’s tries in the dying minutes completed the drubbing.

Farrell knows it will take another gear or two to match the Springboks next Saturday, the back-to-back world champions having pulled away from the rest of the world’s Test nations in the past 12 months. Yet there were enough positives to take from Ireland’s reawakening to make this final, sold-out clash a whole lot more enticing for home supporters.

Farrell, of course, was confident this would happen, that his players would finally transfer their work on the training field into a performance of such a high standard.

"That's a given for me,” he said. “We're a very good side. There's no doubt about that. You could put in all sorts of reasons of why the first performance or the second performance or whatever but that's never been in doubt, in my mind anyway.

"You grow belief by how you prepare. Sometimes you prepare really well and it doesn't transfer. We had an unbelievable warm-up out there today and I was going, 'wow, if Carlsberg could do warm-ups, that would be it’.

“But that doesn't transfer either sometimes. I've seen unbelievably rubbish warm-ups and seen teams play well. So, it's nice that we prepare well and we're got a performance on the back of it. With our consistency of preparation, there has to be belief and confidence that goes with that, but it obviously helps to back it up.” 

Now for his next trick, extending a healthy recent record against the Boks of four wins in their last five meetings since 2017, with victories secured not just on home soil but in a World Cup and most recently in Durban 16 months ago. Yet Farrell acknowledged the need for his players to bring out even more of their potential this weekend.

"I don't think it will necessarily be enough,” the Ireland boss said of the performance his team produced against Australia, “but I like the way that we got out of the way of ourselves.

“Last week, we talked about after a couple of errors, we just went within ourselves a little bit and it didn't happen this week because there were plenty of mistakes, it's always going to happen in Test-match rugby anyway, never mind with the conditions the way they were. I suppose that's the most pleasing part for me.

"I mean it's a fantastic place to be, isn't it? The best in the world (South Africa). Everyone's talking about them and the type of rugby that they're playing. A rich vein of form and rightly so. They've played some brilliant stuff.

“It's a fantastic way to finish off our autumn. The last game at the Aviva. We'll certainly enjoy this win but the lads will be back on task and they'll know what it means to everyone in Irish rugby as well.”

Farrell is right to get excited about this Saturday’s visit from Rassie Erasmus and his all-conquering Springboks, and he outlined why he loved their brand of rugby.

“It's their energy and enthusiasm, which is probably driven from a couple of points of difference, one being the defence as in linespeed, one being the breakdown and the other being the set piece. They get their energy from all of those bits because they do them really well.

“They know their own DNA but they're able to add a few tricks as well with the type of personnel they have in their armoury.  What a fantastic opportunity to test yourself. You always want to play against New Zealand. You always want to test yourself against the best. Certainly in this moment in time, South Africa are definitely the best."

IRELAND: M Hansen (C Casey, 71); T O'Brien, R Henshaw, S McCloskey (B Aki, 27), J Lowe; S Prendergast (J Crowley, 60), J Gibson-Park; P McCarthy (A Porter, 47), D Sheehan (R Kelleher, 56), T Furlong (T Clarkson, 56, Furlong 71 - HIA); J Ryan (C Prendergast, 56), T Beirne; R Baird, C Doris – captain, J Conan (N Timoney, 47).

AUSTRALIA: M Jorgensen; F Daugunu (A Kellaway, 55 - HIA), J-A Suaalii, L Ikitau, H Potter; J O’Connor (T Edmed, 70), J Gordon (R Lonergan, 70); A Bell (T Robertson, 53), M Faessler (B Pollard, 53), A Alaalatoa (Z Nonggorr, 62); J Williams (N Frost, 55), T Hooper; R Valetini (C Tizzano, 62), F McReight, H Wilson – captain.

Yellow card: N Frost 70-80.

Referee: Karl Dickson (England)