South Africa first stop in a season Gus McCarthy hopes will end in Australia

“It's a very cool feeling, it's a great experience for the group, a great chance as a squad to get to know each other better.” 

Leinster's Gus McCarthy in preseason Pic: INPHO/Grace Halton

There was a time when South Africa held a mysterious, magical but foreboding place in the psyche of Irish rugby.

The international revulsion for apartheid kept the two countries apart on the field for the 17 years between 1981 and 1998. The British and Irish Lions had the same length of hiatus between 1980 and 1997.