How Springbok Women plan to overcome Ireland
by KickOff Rugby · KickOffHaving crossed paths with almost every leading rugby nation in the world over the last five years has been a valuable opportunity for the Springbok Women to improve their game. However, Ireland will be an unknown factor for the South Africans when they clash in the WXV Global Series at Athlone Stadium in Cape Town on Saturday.
Ireland is the only top-10-ranked side that none of the current Springbok Women squad have played against. The only time the two sides have met was 20 years ago at the 2006 Rugby World Cup. However, after a couple of seasons playing her rugby in England, Catha Jacobs has rubbed shoulders with a number of Irish internationals in the same league.
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“Those players are very skilful and that carried over to their national team as well,” reflected Jacobs, who played for Saracens and Leicester Tigers in recent seasons.
“Ireland have an all-round game, so we will be tested in multiple areas for sure. They have a good set-piece, especially lineouts, and their players have a good skill set across the team.
“They also have a very good kicking game and will no doubt use that to put us under pressure,” added the South African utility forward.
Having never played against Ireland before presents an interesting challenge for the Springbok Women, especially as the visitors are ranked fifth in the world. However, Jacobs said that would not deter their ambitions to win.
“We need to beat them irrespective of what that will do to improve our ranking,” she said.
“The rankings are important as we had a target at the start of the season for where we wanted to finish, but that wasn’t our only goal.
“We have already beaten the USA and Italy, who had a better ranking than us, and now we have the opportunity to get one over Ireland. To do that successfully, we need to win the small battles first on the day, and the rest will follow.”
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Jacobs has 34 Test caps to her name and, after playing all over the world during the 2026 season, said she could not wait to return to Athlone Stadium.
“We love playing at Athlone Stadium and I urge people to come and watch us play,” she said. “There is nothing better than playing for your country, and to do that in front of an appreciative crowd is even better. We will be ready.”
Jacobs also insisted that the team had put in the hard work ahead of the clash.
“A lot of our focus in the last couple of weeks went into our set piece and I think we improved a lot in our combinations too. We understand each other quite well by now and that is reaping rewards. That certainly gives us confidence going into the weekend.”
The match kicks off at 15h00.