Rugby: Second Test South Africa versus Ireland

Having narrowly lost the first test 27-20 at altitude in Pretoria, the Irish team to play the Springboks in the second and final test in Durban on Saturday at 4.00pm (Irish time) has been announced and contains some interesting changes.

Tadgh Beirne has been selected at blind-side ahead of Captain Peter O’Mahony, in what I would consider an overdue change. O’Mahony has been a great leader and servant of Irish rugby, but he is aged almost 35 and has been past his best for some time. It is time Ireland moved on, and Caelan Doris has proved an able replacement as Captain.

James Ryan comes into the second row to beef up Ireland’s strength in the tight against a team renowned for their tight five play – although Ireland did surprising well against them in the scrum last week. Conor Murray comes in at 9 for the concussed Casey and Kelleher at 2 for the injured Sheehan.

Ringrose is selected at 13 with Henshaw moving to 12 in place of Aki who doesn’t even make the bench. These are marginal calls but show Ireland’s strength in depth in the backs. Jimmy O’Brian, Larmour and Stockdale don’t even get any gametime on this tour. Nevertheless, the absence of Gibson Park, Keenan, Hansen, Aki, Casey, and Sheehan will be felt. Ireland can’t afford to lose five top class players in the backs, and Conor Murray is now effectively our third choice 9.

The call up of Heffernan and Doak into the squad illustrates that we are nearing the end of our test class strength in depth in those positions. Whatever happened to Tom Stewart and Diarmuid Barron at hooker, and if the 33 year old Heffernan can be called up, why not the 34 year old Cooney who has been playing better than ever this season?

Nevertheless, it is heartening that Ireland can field such a strong team, while missing five top class players and making four personnel and two positional changes to the team fielded last week. South Africa, by way of contrast, have made none, despite their renowned strength in depth and the aging of some of their very experienced team. So, who is building better for the future?

Overall, I was quite pleased with the performance of the team in the first test last week, particularly against South Africa’s renowned scrum, and despite a disjointed performance in the first half. Once again, the officials, and particularly the TMO, Ben Whitehouse did Ireland no favours, interfering when there was nothing clear and obvious to disallow James Lowe’s outstanding try, and not even reviewing the tackle that ended Craig Casey’s season. How many more deaths from chronic traumatic encephalopathy will it take for rugby to take player welfare seriously?

True to form, Ireland have not made an issue of what were obvious officiating errors, but I have little confidence in Saturday’s referee, Karl Dickson, improving matters. He has a history of referring Ireland more harshly than opposing teams. When you are playing a team as physical as South Africa who are always operating at the edge of the law, you need all the help you can get.

While there is plenty of scope for Ireland to improve their line-out, defence out wide, and general decision-making, I believe South Africa probably have more scope to improve their performance, particularly with such a settled team. I would therefore be surprised if Ireland manage to turn this series around. Quite often, on tour, the first test is your best chance to win, although Ireland did win the second and third tests against New Zealand away. Beating the World Champions in Durban would be a performance to match that.

But being competitive against such a strong side away from home while blooding relatively new players like Osborne, Frawley, Blade, Nash, Crowley, and McCarthy at this level has to be a satisfactory conclusion to the season. Even Ireland’s previous solitary defeat to England at Twickenham in the Six Nations has been put into some perspective by the latter losing to New Zealand, away, by just a solitary point – despite Marcus Smith having an off day off the tee.

Meanwhile, also in South Africa, the Irish u.20’s have qualified for the semi-finals of the world cup as winners of Group B after their match against Australia was called off due to a rain sodden pitch. They play England, the winners of Pool C, in Cape Town on Sunday at 3.30 PM (Irish Time) with the match televised live on Rugbypass TV (free).  Ireland drew with England away in the 6 Nations but lost out on winning the title on points.

The tournament has a tight schedule with a match every 5 days, so the cancelled match gives Ireland a 10 day break. However having played only two matches with different teams against Italy and Georgia, Ireland may not be as battle hardened as England who beat South Africa with the last play of the match in their third and final pool match. New Zealand play France in the other semi-final. Ireland lost to France in the final last year.

Ireland: Jamie Osborne; Calvin Nash, Garry Ringrose, Robbie Henshaw, James Lowe; Jack Crowley, Conor Murray; Andrew Porter, Rónan Kelleher, Tadhg Furlong; Joe McCarthy, James Ryan; Tadhg Beirne, Josh van der Flier, Caelan Doris.

Replacements: Rob Herring, Cian Healy, Finlay Bealham, Ryan Baird, Peter O’Mahony, Caolan Blade, Ciarán Frawley, Stuart McCloskey.

Frank Schnittger is the author of Sovereignty 2040, a future history of how Irish re-unification might work out. He has worked in business in Dublin and London and, on a voluntary basis, for charities in community development, education, restorative justice and addiction services.