Canan Moodie: 'It’s going to be a good challenge for this group'

Rassie Erasmus’s Springboks are two wins away from a perfect, five from five end-of-year tour, after victories over Japan, France, and Italy in the previous three weeks.

With just Wales in Cardiff and Ireland in Dublin left to conquer in 2025, the Springboks this weekend will look to win at a place that they haven’t won at during Erasmus’ tenure as head coach since 2018, with the last victory in Duby a Springboks side being in 2012 under former head coach Heyneke Meyer.

Ireland have got their own injury issues, with Andy Farrell announcing that Stuart McCloskey’s groin injury sustained on the weekend will keep him out of the clash in Dublin, but they will get back Josh van de Flier and Gary Ringrose who have both recovered from hamstring strains.

Moodie, who impressed against Italy in Turin, spoke to Rugby 365 about the challenge that Italy posed, as well as how the Springboks had to adjust top being down to 13 men at one stage.

“We had a tough week of prep; we had to cover a lot. They had a different centre partnership with Brex coming in, who is more of a ball carrier, so it was tough preparing for them,” Moodie said.

Team Form

Last 5 Games

43 - 21

27 - 17

21 - 42

20 - 13

36 - 14

0 - 73

13 - 24

14 - 32

17 - 32

61 - 7

4

Wins

5

4

Streak

5

20

Tries Scored

21

38

Points Difference

171

4/5

First Try

3/5

4/5

First Points

3/5

3/5

Race To 10 Points

3/5

“But Ethan and I had the confidence to trust each other. The coaches wouldn’t have picked us if they didn’t believe that we could do the job, and we just took confidence out of that.

“Some things went their way, and we had to adapt. We only played like twenty minutes together, but it was a nice challenge to go out there and face them.”

Not only do Farrell’s side get back two important players for this weekend’s clash, Erasmus has also added both Bongi Mbonambi and prop Ntuhuko Mchunu into the squad for the two remaining fixtures in 2025.

With these additions, Erasmus is also expected to make changes ahead of the Ireland Test when the team is named on Thursday afternoon, after a bruising encounter against Italy in Turin.

The versatile 23-year-old back understands how important this weekend’s grudge match is, especially with the history of the two sides and the Springboks’ inability to defeat Ireland in Dublin.

“Ireland is going to be a big one. We haven’t won there [under coach Rassie Erasmus], so it’s going to be a good challenge for this group.

“We will hit the ground running and start preparing for Ireland.”