'You’re like: ‘These are some of the worst people in the world''- Mack Hansen

Connacht wing Mack Hansen has said that Ireland’s growing rivalry with the All Blacks and South Africa “adds to the game”.

A feud between Ireland and the two leading sides in the world has developed over the past decade, and only intensified during the 2023 World Cup, where Andy Farrell’s side beat the Springboks in the pool stages before crashing out of the tournament at the hands of the All Blacks in the quarter-finals.

Joining the For the Love of Rugby podcast this week, Hansen was quizzed about Ireland’s rivalries, like his national team-mate Stuart McCloskey was the week before. However, rather than downplaying Ireland’s rivalries slightly as McCloskey did – saying South Africans dislike the Irish more than the Irish dislike the South Africans – the Connacht star championed the “passion and intensity”.

While the 28-year-old said the players are “great blokes,” he said the mindset a week before a Test match is different, where it becomes “so personal”.

Furthermore, Hansen, whose last Test match came against the Springboks in November, discussed Ireland’s growing rivalry with Scotland.

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“It does then become so personal leading up to the weeks when we’re playing South Africa or New Zealand. Again, you talk to them off the field and they’re like anyone in rugby – good fellas, you get on with them, they’re great blokes – but leading up to that week you despise them,” he said.

“You’re like: ‘These are some of the worst people in the world at this moment.’ There’s a lot going on in the world and you’re like: ‘I honestly hate their guts.’ Then once it’s finished, it’s done.

“But I think that’s what’s good about it. A bit of passion and intensity adds to the game. When you know there are two teams that genuinely dislike each other, you give it your everything. We’ve got a few teams like that at the moment that probably hate us.

“Another one in the Six Nations for us is probably Scotland. There’s a bit of a thing going on there. We’ve maybe got the better of them recently, but whenever we’re playing them they’re normally on a bit of a roll, we’re locked into it, we dislike them and we want to beat them. We don’t want them to get one over on us. That’s a testament to them. It adds a lot to you as a person when you have those rivalries going into a game.”