'Good weekend' for injured Irish duo ahead of Springboks

Assistant coach Simon Easterby accepts Ireland must produce their best performance of the autumn to continue their fine recent record against back-to-back world champions South Africa.

Andy Farrell’s side returned to form at the weekend with a record 46-19 success over Australia after bouncing back from a 26-13 defeat to New Zealand with a disjointed 41-10 victory over Japan.

The formidable Springboks, who are due in Dublin on Saturday evening, have won 21 of 25 matches since retaining the World Cup in 2023, but have lost four of their last five meetings with Ireland.

“We’ll certainly take the positives from the (Australia) 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,” Easterby told reporters on Tuesday.

“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.

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“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.”

Centre Garry Ringrose and flanker Josh van der Flier remain on course to return against Rassie Erasmus’ side at the Aviva Stadium following hamstring issues.

The pair started against the All Blacks in Chicago before sitting out the Japan and Australia games.

“It’s been a good weekend for them I guess in terms of getting through what they needed to do in terms of their rehab and they’ve hit the ground running yesterday and today,” said Easterby.

“The mood is really good and the lads have trained well today.”

Ireland defeated South Africa in Dublin in 2017 and 2022 before beating them in the pool stage of the 2023 World Cup and then securing a 1-1 series draw a year later.

Easterby rejected the suggestion that the overall success of the current international window will be determined by the outcome of Saturday’s clash.

“I wouldn’t say that; 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,” he said.

“It’s not always going to be perfect, you’re not going to have it your own way all the time.

“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.”