Ireland and the Springboks are on a collision course, with the back-to-back Six Nations winners set to take on the back-to back World Cup champions on South African soil in July.
Heading into Super Saturday, Ireland had not yet secured the Six Nations crown with France and England still in the title race. But the Irish ultimately did enough to edge Scotland 17-13 and with that result clinch a second consecutive championship.
Up for for Andy Farrell’s dominant side is a two-Test series against Rassie Erasmus’ Springboks; and it’s going to be a match-up of the ages with plenty of animosity between the sides and even more storylines and subplots.
Ireland are the last team to beat the Springboks, in the group stage of the 2023 World Cup making it three wins in a row against South Africa. The last time the Springboks managed to get the better of Ireland was back in 2016.
And with many rugby pundits, Test coaches and players openly raving about Ireland being the best team in the world, despite the Springboks sitting atop the World Rugby rankings and being world champions; this upcoming series between the two top ranked nations will confirm who the actual best Test team is.
IRELAND TURN ATTENTION TO WORLD CHAMPION SPRINGBOKS
Talking about the show games, scheduled for 6 July in Pretoria and 13 July in Durban, Farrell said it’s a difficult and exciting challenge in equal measure.
“All you want is an opportunity to put yourself out there against the best and South Africa are 100 percent the best.
“To be consistently at your best is probably impossible but that is what we’re going after,” the Ireland coach added.
“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.”
