Series win in SA will make up for World Cup heartache for Ireland

Ireland still haven’t recovered from their heartache of not going further than the quarterfinals of the Rugby World Cup, but winning a test series in South Africa would be the next best thing.

Irish forwards coach Paul O’Connell admitted that the team may never recover from the failure of France 2023, especially after they were favourites to win the tournament, but the “next, most important thing” is to win in South Africa.

Ireland have already done what was deemed impossible by winning a test series in New Zealand two years ago, but have never won a series in South Africa.

And that has become their goal on this tour, where they will face the Boks in two tests that pit the World’s two top ranked sides against each other.

“You recover from it. You’ve just got to move on to the next thing,” O’Connell said.

“We’d love to have done better at the World Cup. We just came up against a good side. We gave ourselves a mountain to climb, we climbed most of it but didn’t get the last bit there.

“Then, it’s just on to the next competition. We’d a bit of a turnover; Johnny [Sexton], in particular, moving on. We’d love to have won the Grand Slam. We could have done it, we mightn’t have deserved to have done it, but we’d love to have done it.

“Going on to win the Six Nations, especially with a bit of a turnover in the team, was excellent. It’s funny how the game goes. The boys really celebrate any victory they have with the team, but you’ve got to move on quickly then.

“The next thing becomes the biggest, most important thing. We’ve never won a series in South Africa. As an Irish team, we’ve only ever won one game down here. It’s a brilliant place for us to be.”

'MASSIVE CHALLENGE FOR IRELAND'

O’Connell did a good job at playing up the Boks in his media chat, praising the Boks as a very tough side to play, and a “massive challenge” for Ireland.

“They are world champions. They have good continuity in their playing group. They know what they stand for and I reckon there is a lot of confidence in their group at the moment so it’s a massive challenge for us to be away from home, but our boys are looking forward to it," added O'Connell.

"They're an excellent set piece side, an excellent lineout side, always have been.

"We’ve been a little specific about them but it’s been mainly about us doing our stuff better across the board and boys enjoy doing that. We enjoy focusing on ourselves.

"You have to focus on the opposition and what they are going to do but by and large we concentrate on ourselves a little bit more than we did in my playing days."

With so much noise going on around the first test at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday, O’Connell also played down Ireland’s victory over the Boks in the World Cup as irrelevant for Saturday. While Ireland have won five of the last seven games between the two sides, and the last three in a row, the last time they played South Africa in South Africa was in 2016.

And every game is certainly different, as Saturday’s clash at Loftus Versfeld will be.

“We wouldn’t really lean on that experience, no. We’d lean on past experiences ourselves because we’re always trying to evolve, trying to get better, trying to learn from the past so it can help us go forward,” he said.

“I wouldn’t say it’s not relevant. You know what the place is going to be like. It’s a fantastic stadium, it has a brilliant tradition of rugby.

“Their fans absolutely love it, they love playing a part in the game. You have to be aware of that, but for us it’s about focusing on ourselves as much as possible. When we do that, we tend to do all right.

“When teams become distracted by the noise outside, it becomes exactly that: a distraction. We’re just trying to steer clear of it.”

Ireland will name their side for the clash on Thursday.