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History signals Ireland win and 4 other talking points before Boks

By PA
Ireland versus South Africa/ PA

Ireland take on South Africa in Durban seeking to salvage a series draw against the world champions.

The Springboks deservedly edged last weekend’s opening Test in Pretoria, triumphing 27-20.

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Here, the PA news agency picks out some of the main talking points ahead of Saturday’s showdown at Kings Park Stadium.

Settling the debate?

South Africa have the opportunity to cement their current status as rugby’s top-ranked nation after ending a seven-year wait for a win over their closest challengers.

Video Spacer

Irish defense coach Simon Easterby on TMO calls

Video Spacer

Irish defense coach Simon Easterby on TMO calls

Despite the Springboks overcoming a pool-stage loss to Ireland at last year’s World Cup to retain the Webb Ellis Cup, some pundits have continued to suggest Andy Farrell’s back-to-back Six Nations champions are Test rugby’s best team.

The hosts are heavy favourites to secure a series win. Doing so would surely settle the ongoing debate – for the time being at least.

Fixture
Internationals
South Africa
24 - 25
Full-time
Ireland
All Stats and Data

Captain Caelan

While South Africa have named an unchanged 23, including the most experienced starting XV in their history, Farrell has been forced to shuffle his selection.

Dan Sheehan, Craig Casey and Bundee Aki picked up injuries last weekend and will be replaced by Ronan Kelleher, Conor Murray and Garry Ringrose.

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In his only unenforced personnel change, the head coach has dropped captain Peter O’Mahony to the bench, resulting in Tadhg Beirne switching from the second row to blindside flanker and a recall for lock James Ryan. Number eight Caelan Doris captains his country for only the second time and will hope to lead them to a famous victory.

TMO talk

The Springboks benefited from a couple of tight TMO calls during the opening Test. Ireland wing James Lowe thought he had levelled the contest at 13-13 in the second half with a breakaway score.

But the effort was disallowed on review due to Kelleher illegally hooking the ball backwards during the Irish turnover. Lowe was then adjudged to have successfully prevented a South Africa penalty kick going into touch as he inadvertently gifted a try to Cheslin Kolbe.

Farrell was “dubious” about some of the marginal calls in that match but former international referee Jaco Peyper, who is now part of South Africa’s staff, backed those decisions.

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Bundee a big loss

Influential centre Aki starred at last year’s World Cup in France and had started all of Ireland’s major matches since round three of the 2023 Six Nations.

Following a bruising opening encounter, the 34-year-old’s physicality and bullish ball-carrying skills will be a big miss.

Robbie Henshaw has shifted to inside centre to fill the void and will be joined in midfield by Leinster team-mate Ringrose, who will make his first international start since the World Cup after injury ruined his Six Nations campaign.

Remarkable run

Ireland have not lost two Test matches in a row since defeat to Wales and France at the start of the 2021 Six Nations.

Since then, Farrell’s men have played 38 games and won 33, losing only to New Zealand (twice), France, England and the Springboks. Ireland will be determined to maintain that impressive record as they move towards autumn fixtures against the All Blacks, Argentina, Fiji and Australia.

The four November fixtures will be the final outings before Farrell temporarily departs to take charge of next year’s British and Irish Lions tour against the Wallabies.

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Comments

7 Comments
F
Flankly 163 days ago

“History signals Ireland win”

Yep. Ireland are the favorites.

Hope the Boks can pull off a magical win against the odds. Yep - Boks are the underdogs here.

It pretty much boils down to whether Karl Dixon cares about the ruck rules. If he does then the Irish game plan turns into penalties or much slower rucks. That leads to an Irish loss and the “learned a lot and will be better” speech. If he fails to enforce basic ruck laws, like the Pearce thing of ignoring blatant ruck infringements, then we are in for an unwatchable game in which the Boks have to manage the ruck cheating and win nonetheless.

Suggestion: Don’t bet on an Irish win, either way.

C
Chris 163 days ago

We are going to beat Ireland by 15 points or more if they allow a gap at the scrum. They can’t handle our scrum. Missing Aki is going to hurt.

B
Barry 163 days ago

TMO aside, last week was an even game. Equal penality count and similar possession and territory stats.

They've always been single score games with the exception of the odd blowout every once in a while.

Sense another close one that could go either way. Dickson is a great ref.

j
jim 163 days ago

Don’t think saying ‘former international referee Jaco Peyper’ adds much credibility to his opinion. He’s a paid member of the SA backroom team so is 110% biased regardless of his exceptional career. Now if Nigel Owens backed those decisions I would pay attention

B
Bull Shark 163 days ago

Ireland benefited from non-existent refereeing of the rucks.

And which pundits - who exactly - is STILL suggesting Ireland are the best team in the world?

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J
JW 27 minutes ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I had a look at the wiki article again, it's all terribly old data (not that I'd see reason for much change in the case of SA).

Number Of Clubs:

1526

Registered+Unregistered Players:

651146

Number of Referees:

3460

Pre-teen Male Players:

320842

Pre-teen Female Player:

4522

Teen Male Player:

199213

Teen Female Player:

4906

Senior Male Player:

113174

Senior Female Player:

8489

Total Male Player:

633229

Total Female Player:

17917


So looking for something new as were more concerned with adults specifically, so I had a look at their EOY Financial Review.

The total number of clubs remains consistent, with a marginal increase of 1% from 1,161 to 1,167. 8.1.

A comparative analysis of verified data for 2022 and 2023 highlights a marginal decline of 1% in the number of female players, declining from 6,801 to 6,723. Additionally, the total number of players demonstrates an 8% decrease, dropping from 96,172 to 88,828.

So 80k+ adult males (down from 113k), but I'm not really sure when youth are involved with SAn clubs, or if that data is for some reason not being referenced/included. 300k male students however (200k in old wiki data).


https://resources.world.rugby/worldrugby/document/2020/07/28/212ed9cf-cd61-4fa3-b9d4-9f0d5fb61116/P56-57-Participation-Map_v3.pdf has France at 250k registered but https://presse-europe1-fr.translate.goog/exclu-europe-1-le-top-10-des-sports-les-plus-pratiques-en-france-en-2022/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp has them back up at 300k registered.


The French number likely Students + Club, but everyone collects data different I reckon. In that WR pdf for instance a lot of the major nations have a heavily registered setup, were as a nation like England can penetrate into a lot more schools to run camps and include them in the reach of rugby. For instance the SARU release says only 29% of schools are reached by proper rugby programs, where as the 2million English number would be through a much much higer penetration I'd imagine. Which is thanks to schools having the ability to involve themselves in programs more than anything.


In any case, I don't think you need to be concerned with the numbers, whether they are 300 or 88k, there is obviously a big enough following for their pro scenes already to have enough quality players for a 10/12 team competition. They appear ibgger than France but I don't really by the lower English numbers going around.

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