Ireland will study 'all the possible combinations' in anticipation of South African tricks

AS ONE OF the longest Mexican Waves in sporting history continued to wrap its way around the Aviva Stadium, nobody in the Ireland coaching box would have felt the urge to throw their hands in the air.

A laboured performance was peppered with flashes of quality as Ireland eventually saw off the challenge of a stubborn Fiji side who played with plenty of intent, but ultimately didn’t have the quality to make a sticky fixture something far more problematic for their hosts.

There are seven-try bonus-point wins which makes the world feel a little lighter, yet this was a seven-try bonus win which made it painfully clear Ireland have a body of work to do if they are to trouble the back-to-back world champions on Saturday night.

A Springboks side who came up short in a Friday night epic in France would have been  feeling a little bit better about themselves after watching Saturday’s proceedings in Dublin.

After a scrappy first-half, Ireland led by two points at the break. Andy Farrell won’t have enjoyed the disjointed, wasteful nature of much of that opening 40 minutes, Jake White’s side causing all types of problems through a determined, dogged effort.

Maybe that’s a blessing in disguise. As White said himself post-game, his team “probably did Ireland a favour.

“Let me put it that way, because I think Ireland, deep down, know that if they play like that against South Africa, they’re going to be up against it.”

Not that Ireland needed White to spell it out for them, and the confrontational nature of Fiji’s performance was a decent tee-up for what we’re all expecting to see in round three of this November window.

“It’s probably something we kind of scouted during the week, that historically you would have thought like Fiji throwing the ball around a lot,” said hooker Rónan Kelleher.

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“I feel like they’ve really kind of changed the game a little bit with a lot more kicking, aerial contests and stuff like that, which is obviously similar to Test rugby versus South Africa and stuff like that. So, yeah, similar in that regard, and yeah, as they said, probably a good test.”

Ireland’s checklist for the week will include cleaning up their discipline, ensuring players stay switched on mentally, and sharpening their collision work.

Farrell will point to how often Ireland gave Fiji oxygen through their own errors. Tidying those up will be essential against the Boks, who don’t need to be handed any ‘ins’.

“Obviously it was a real tough, real physical game, but we kind of feel like we allowed them in by allowing them to win those scraps and all those little moments, particularly in that first half,” Kelleher added.

“So what’s kind of a pleasing and positive thing for us is that there’s a lot of work on from that and we’re really going to go after that this week and look forward to getting better there.”

And the second-half response was an improvement, Ireland keeping Fiji scoreless as they slowly pulled clear to win by 28 points. 

At times, there was nice variety to Ireland’s attacking play, and the scrum was a notable positive against a physical Fiji side – Andy Farrell’s men forcing four scrum penalties and going 100% on both their own scrum and lineout.

Kelleher was one of Ireland’s more consistent performers on the night, central to that setpiece effort and crossing for a second-half try.

“Yeah, we’re constantly just trying to chase it down and trying to chase down getting better each day,” Kelleher said of Ireland’s scrum.

“Little work-ons, little tweaks here and there. But it’s nothing massive. There hasn’t been a drastic overhaul or anything like that. It’s just been us focusing on what we can do really. And then I think we’re just going to have to wait and see for next week.

“And please God, we’ll have enough in the tank and we’ll do a job.”

Encouraging signs, even if the test next weekend pits them against a totally different beast.

And a beast with no shortage of tricks up their sleeve. Shortly before Friday’s clash in Paris kicked off, news filtered through that Rassie Erasmus was swapping his named starting front row with the three front row replacements on the bench. The type of move which might be a shock if it came from any other team.

Farrell would be wise to treat South Africa’s named team this week as you would an inter-county GAA team announced during Championship. What you see isn’t always what you’re going to get.

“Just because now that they’ve done it a few times, you just kind of have to be prepared for all scenarios. So you’ll obviously chase down what their starting front row are doing, what their bench front rows are doing. You’ll go across all the possible combinations that they’ll have.

“We’ll delve into that, do our homework there. So I think it doesn’t change too much for us. We’ll obviously continue focusing on what we’re doing.

“And then when we decide to review their scrum, we’ll obviously have to look at all the different possible combinations there really.

“Obviously, it was a very tough day (last November). It was a tough day, particularly, I suppose, at scrum time. And for us in the front row, it’s something that kind of drives you on a bit.

“It’s something that you obviously just have to take the learnings. You have to take it on the chin. But I’d say, yeah, definitely, at times, it definitely drove us last season.”

And it will drive things this week as Ireland look to transform a mixed showing against Fiji into the sort of connected, clean effort that will be needed to beat the Boks in Dublin. This is the big one, and it’s going to require the biggest Ireland performance we’ve seen for some time.