SCENE SETTER: Boks will be wary of Ireland team that has built into form

One thing that has become clearer as the Quilter Autumn Nations Series has drawn on is that the initial prediction that some of the northern nations would pay for not having played in a while was correct, and it is why the Springboks need to be particularly wary of Ireland in Dublin on Saturday.

Of course you don’t need to tell Siya Kolisi and his team to take Ireland seriously. They’ve experienced enough heartache at the AVIVA Stadium over the past decade, and the last game they played against Ireland was the one in Durban last year where they lost in agonising fashion to a late drop-goal.

That was supposed to be the series where the successive world champions would underline their superiority over the side that at that point was the Six Nations champion team and thus acknowledged as the kings of Europe. The Boks did score a good win in Pretoria in the first game, but Ireland squared the series with that heist at Hollywoodbets Kings Park.

Neither would the Boks have forgotten the physicality that Ireland brought to that second game. The first half in particular was brutal, with Ireland giving the Boks a taste of their own medicine. Ireland were dominant in the first half before the Boks came back strongly in the third quarter only to lose the game because of poor game management towards the end.

THE EARLY IRISH PICTURE WASN’T FLATTERING

However, while the Boks would have ended that series in July last year feeling they had a score to settle with Ireland and they would have marked down the date for this return clash, the first part of the northern hemisphere’s autumn international season painted a different picture of Ireland.

They were well beaten by the All Blacks in the neutral game in Chicago, and were very ordinary against Japan until the last minutes of their first proper home game.

With the Boks beating France in Paris later that same day, the Boks established themselves as firm favourites for Saturday’s AVIVA Stadium game. After all, they’ve won with daylight between themselves and their opponents against both France and New Zealand, who both comfortably beat Ireland the last time they played them.

Yet it may just have been a case of Ireland needing to become more battle hardened and cohesive, remembering of course that because of the British and Irish Lions tour in July and August, Ireland hadn’t played together since March.

The All Blacks, like the Boks, were just a month on from the end of the Castle Lager Rugby Championship and it should have been expected that they would be more battle hardened and cohesive than their opponents.

It would be interesting to ask Bok coach Rassie Erasmus which he would have preferred - to play France when they did, in their first game of the new northern international season, or play them now. And vice-versa with Ireland. France struggled a bit against Fiji in their second game this past weekend, but Ireland were sharp and had their attacking shape back in convincingly outplaying Australia.

LIGHT YEARS BETTER

Their 47-19 win over the Wallabies came off a performance that was certainly light years better than what they produced against the All Blacks and there is no denying that playing together has bred better cohesion and no doubt also made them more battle hardened.

However, it also needs to be noted that Australia aren’t the same team that beat the Boks in Johannesburg in August, the game that was their high point of the year. Since then they were lucky to win one of their two games on Australian soil against Argentina (they lost the other), they lost twice to the All Blacks in the Bledisloe Cup, scraped a four point win against Japan in Tokyo on their way to Europe and then lost to Italy before bumping into Ireland.

There are many reasons that can be forwarded for Australia’s deteriorating form over the past few months. Obviously they do have a massive problem when it comes to the flyhalf game driving position, where they have neither depth nor experience (although James O’Connor was back for the Ireland game you could tell he hadn’t played the previous few games), but the bigger reason could be that they started the international season with a tough series against the British and Irish Lions.

Australia are not like the Boks in the sense that they have some easy games as their world ranking position, currently seventh, reflects that there is less of a difference between them and say Japan than their is for instance between the No 1 ranked Boks and Japan. Australia sometimes have to dig deep even against tier two nations, and may be a big part of why they look out on their feet at the moment.

SA WILL BE VERY DIFFERENT TO AUSSIES

So was the good Ireland win down to their own improvement or the fact that the team they played against, who lost to Italy the week before, started out looking flat? It is probably a bit of both, and with Erasmus having rested many of his top players for their game against Italy, there shouldn’t be anything flat about the Boks this week.

Hulle weet nie wat ons weet nie...

Big week loading ☘️#Springboks #ForeverGreenForeverGold pic.twitter.com/O23ODTgnV1 — Springboks (@Springboks) November 17, 2025

Playing South Africa is these days also a very different proposition to playing against Australia, but the answers to all these question can only be properly answered under the AVIVA Stadium lights on Saturday night, the same night that France will host the Aussies and New Zealand will be in Cardiff for what should be a big rebound win from their Twickenham experience.

England play Argentina in the last game of the official international window and they could be more tested than they expect to be after the high of beating the All Blacks as the Pumas, with their selection for the game against Scotland this past weekend, appear to have been targeting the London game as the big one on their tour. And rightly so given that England are now the most talked about team outside of the Boks.

Weekend Quilter Autumn Nations Series fixtures

Wales v New Zealand (Cardiff, Saturday 5:10pm)

Ireland v South Africa (Dublin, Saturday 7:40pm)

France v Australia (Paris, Saturday 10:10pm)

Italy v Chile (Genoa, Saturday 10:10pm)

Scotland v Tonga (Edinburgh, Sunday 3:40pm)

England v Argentina (London, Sunday 6:10pm)