Ireland coach Declan Kidney insists that injury has hit Ireland harder than South Africa ahead of their clash in Dublin on Saturday.
Ireland will be without several key players, amongst them stalwarts like Brian O'Driscoll, Paul O'Connell and Stephen Ferris while the Springboks are wthout the services of Bismarck du Plessis, Frans Steyn and Andries Bekker, among others.
But Kidney believes the Boks have greater depth in their playing ranks to overcome their injury list.
"The tradition of South African rugby is the set piece and the physicality they bring," he said.
"The fact they have a few bangs and knocks.....well they have 600 professional players to our 120, giving them more depth to choose from.
"They have a lot of exciting talent in their set up that we probably don't know much about.
"They're the third-best team in the world so they will be a huge challenge."
Ireland are keen to redeem themselves after a poor run in the international arena recently.
They lost their final match of the Six Nations to England before losing three successive Tests against New Zealand.
Fly-half Jonathan Sexton believes that experience against the All Blacks could help them to beat the Springboks.
"We took a lot of positives from the first Test and then learnt a lot from the second," he said.
"In that third Test we made three mistakes and were 21-0 down, then we were chasing the game which is very dangerous when you're playing the All Blacks.
"They picked us off and we've learnt from that if we ever go behind again, we'll never chase it that hard.
"If we can be in it with 20 minutes to go, well anything can happen in Test rugby.
"We're concentrating on our performance and trying to get things right when we have the ball."
Comments
melkdave says...
LOL nice @ J_HDK,very apt LOLOL
Posted 16:47 10th November 2012
J_HDK says...
Picture caption competition:
"Shh.. I'm trying to get fired"
Posted 14:34 10th November 2012
irishaussie says...
i don't care mista kidney, the Boks are tired from a gruelling rugby championship campaign and ireland have home advantage.
the outcome is the only thing that matters; excuses and circumstances are irrelevant.
Posted 13:58 10th November 2012
melkdave says...
Have to say im disappointed in Kidney ,for using this an a excuse,even before the games been played.It also to my mind is a crap excuse aswell.Yes SA have a bigger playing pool,109 K comparded to Irelands 25K. Most will be weekend warriors only and not even semi-pro.Also as icing on the cake NZ have 27K adult men registerd players,and they have sat on top the IRB rankings for years Also the proffesional base of players is of a silar size ,5 proffesional clubs in SA, 4 in Ireland.So not really an excuse imo Mr Kidney for your crap team selections.
Posted 12:35 10th November 2012
philip274 says...
Oh my you are so frustrating.................EXCUSES! They have more depth is bull, you have great depth, but i can tell you now, you did not pick the right squad! I really hope you pack your bags at the end of this series, it has been a frustrating two and a half years! Really not looking forward to this evenings game, expecting the worst!
Posted 12:06 10th November 2012