Ireland must raise bar again for Springboks challenge

RAISE THE BAR AGAIN: Ireland may have made a significant return to form in delivering a record victory over Australia but they have been told they will need to go to another level if they are to overcome South Africa in Dublin this Saturday. Picture: ©INPHO/Ben Brady

Ireland may have made a significant return to form in delivering a record victory over Australia but Caelan Doris’s side have been told they will need to go to another level if they are to overcome South Africa in Dublin this Saturday.

Defence coach Simon Easterby was talking after the squad returned to the training field at the IRFU High Performance Centre in Abbotstown on Tuesday and his acknowledgement that the back-to-back world champions’ game possessed unique attributes for the Irish players to negotiate this week came three days after a 46-19 defeat of Joe Schmidt’s Wallabies at Aviva Stadium.

Ireland have shown steady improvement from their opening match of the November Test window, a 26-13 defeat to New Zealand in Chicago on the first day of the month, followed by a 41-10 victory over Japan back on home soil in the opening match of their Quilter Nations Series schedule.

Last Saturday’s win over Australia was highlighted by a first-half Mack Hansen hat-trick, a strong uptick in lineout efficiency and a clinical attack anchored by impressive half-back displays from Jamison Gibson-Park and Sam Prendergast. The Wallabies’ condensed international season since late June was undoubtedly a factor in their 14th and penultimate match of 2025 but while the assistant coach underlined the problems they posed Ireland, not least with three tries, he said it would take a higher gear to beat the Springboks.

“I think Australia have actually gone well during the Rugby Championship,” Easterby said. “Maybe there's been a bit of inconsistencies and they're at the end of a long season for them, they've done a lot of travel but I think we've beaten a good side.

“We saw how they grew into the Lions series and then into the Rugby Championship where they went away from home and beat teams, so I think we'll certainly take the positives from the game but also understand we need to get better each week and I think we've been doing that across the series of three games so far and that'll need to be the case this weekend against South Africa.

“You understand that they have strengths that other teams don't have and you've got to find a few weaknesses as well so we need to be better at what we do with and without the ball.

“That includes our physicality, it includes the ability for us to stop a team scoring tries when they get into our 22 which we weren't good enough at on the weekend so that's international rugby and it doesn't matter who you play, the physicality has to be a given.” 

Easterby said he hoped Ireland could finish the November series on a high with the team’s best performance of this Test window to put a positive spin on the month’s efforts.

“I think there's other things to factor into this series, the challenges of going to Chicago, spending time away, dealing with that loss and building resilience in the squad.

“It's not always going to be perfect, you're not going to have it your own way all the time, it's how the group have responded from the disappointment of Chicago of the game itself has been outstanding and I think there's been plenty of open and honest conversations in the group.

“And it's no better challenge than South Africa coming to the Aviva on the weekend for us to see if we can put a lot of those things into practice that we've spoken about trying to improve on.”