YESTERDAY’S SPRINGBOKS PRESS conference provided us with plenty to discuss, but Ireland insist they’re paying no heed to what the South Africans are saying.
It’s certainly not Ireland’s style to respond to any provocative words from the opposition camp.
Andy Farrell will speak to the media on Thursday evening after Ireland name their matchday 23 to face the Boks in Pretoria but we won’t be expecting any verbal grenades there. The Ireland boss usually laughs off anything in the realm of ‘mind games.’
Paul O’Connell, the forwards coach, is cut from the same cloth. He has no interest in getting into Eben Etzebeth’s accusation that Ireland were arrogant after their World Cup pool win over the Springboks last year, Rassie Erasmus’ tweets about this weekend’s game, or anything else like that.
“I haven’t found it unusual, if we won the World Cup we probably would have been asked to go on a few podcasts as well,” said O’Connell yesterday. “No one wants us to go on it.
“It is what it is. I come across bits and pieces of it. We haven’t spoken about it a lot. We never tend to do around this kind of thing. It tends to become a reaction.
“If you are a head coach as long as Rassie is, you have to figure out a way to enjoy doing the media stuff. He seems to enjoy it and he’s good at it. We haven’t paid a lot of attention to it.”
Instead, Ireland are taking their usual approach of focusing on themselves. It’s something that O’Connell says the Irish players enjoy.
He remembers back in his own playing days how Ireland would focus a lot more on the opposition and knows “it can be a distraction.” He believes this Irish squad perform at their best when the focus is far more on themselves.
“When we do that, we tend to do alright,” said O’Connell, although he did add that Jacques Nienaber’s arrival at Leinser earlier this season has given the province’s big group of Ireland players good insight into how the Springboks operate.
As much as that specific detail, Nienaber’s world-class coaching has been important.
“I think it helps our players because one of the things I notice for us is the better the coaching in the provinces, the better they’re coming into us,” says O’Connell.
“They’ve added another layer to how they defend and think about the game in the last year with Jacques. That’s been a brilliant addition to them.
“He’s been very forthcoming to them with information, he’s all in with them. It’s brilliant.
“He’s been very forthcoming about what they did and how they did it and our boys share a little bit of that with us.”
O’Connell is honest in admitting that he struggles to know when Ireland are about to produce a big performance or have an off day.
He has come to realise that his job means doing the best he can to prepare them but allowing the players to lead things themselves too, given they’re the ones who are going to be in the battle on Saturday.
O’Connell is never uncertain about the ambition in this Ireland squad, though. They’ve been through a lot in the last year with one obvious big low and a couple of big highs. He’s sure that they’re all-in on this final mission of the season.
“We’d love to have done better at the World Cup, we just came up against a good side,” said O’Connell. “We gave ourselves a mountain to climb, we climbed most of it but didn’t get the last bit there.
“Then it’s just on to the next competition. We’d a bit of a turnover, Johnny [Sexton] in particular moving on, so we’d love to have won the Grand Slam. We could have done it, we mightn’t have deserved to have done it but we’d love to have done it.
“Going on to win the Six Nations, especially with a bit of a turnover in the team was excellent. It’s funny how the game goes, the boys really celebrate any victory they have with the team but you’ve got to move on quickly then.
“The next thing becomes the biggest, most important thing. We’ve never won a series in South Africa, as an Irish team we’ve only ever won one game down here. It’s a brilliant place for us to be.”
