Simon Zebo addresses Eben Etzebeth’s ‘arrogant’ Irish accusation and warns Ireland’s style is suited to beat Springboks
Eben Etzbeth and Bundee Aki and an inset of Ireland legend Simon Zebo.
Simon Zebo has warned South Africa that Ireland have the style of play to beat them and that they are still fired up from Eben Etzebeth accusing them of arrogance at the last Rugby World Cup.
Ireland have won four of the five meetings between the nations dating back to 2016 and their former wing says the way they are set up makes the world champions a team they like to play.
Ireland’s attack will stress Boks’ defence
“Ireland has the style to beat them because of Ireland’s short passing,” Zebo told Planet Rugby. “When that structure and shape is done well the defence that you’ll have the most joy against is a team like South Africa, who have out-and-out line speed and come at you.
“Playing under that structure, we quite enjoyed playing South African teams because you know the defence will come to you and we have so many options off the hip, with these short passes, to exploit that.
“It’s very hard defensively to do those repetitive efforts against Ireland.”
Zebo insists Ireland, who sparked their autumn campaign into life with a record win over Australia in Dublin last weekend, “definitely have the tools” to hand South Africa their first loss of the autumn series.
He also says they will not want for motivation, remembering back to their last meeting in Europe, at the 2023 World Cup, when Ireland were ranked number one in the world and beat the Boks in a pool match. That win extended their winning streak to 16 and had them installed as joint tournament favourites.
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Etzebeth’s comments
Afterwards, Etzebeth claimed “probably 12 out of the [Ireland] 23 when I shook the hands told me, ‘See you guys in the final”.
Speaking on The Rugby Pod, South Africa’s most-capped player added: “It just felt like they were just so, so confident saying things like that, ‘See you in the final’ when you knew you had got the mighty All Blacks coming in a World Cup quarter-final.
“It’s good to be confident but you can never be arrogant in this game.”
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Asked whether Ireland would still use that to fire them up, Zebo said: “Oh, yeah, for sure.
“I know Rassie will be doing the same with South Africa with how he’s able to mentally charge his team up and get them prepped for battles.
“It’ll be interesting to hear what Andy Farrell can use. I’m sure there’s plenty of ammo there. It makes for an enthralling game. It’s just going to be so good. I can’t wait.”
To this day Zebo, now a pundit for Premier Sports, finds it hard to believe more than half the Ireland team would have come out with such a remark given they had a quarter-final against New Zealand which, we now know, they lost.
“I was surprised [Etzebeth said what he did], I just didn’t really believe it,” the ex-Ireland star said. “I can see how he can get caught in a story and he might over-exaggerate a little bit.
“I just don’t know if that many players would have said that.
“You never know. Fair play to him, he backed himself anyway. That’s what you want to see. He’s obviously world-class and not afraid to stand his ground on his word.”
Ireland are good enough
South Africa, with two Irish coaches in Jerry Flannery and Felix Jones, go into the game as favourites to win in Dublin for the first time since 2012. Bookmakers have Andy Farrell’s side down as six-point underdogs.
Etzebeth, set to win his 140th cap, said: “We’re excited. When we received the calendar at the beginning of the year, this fixture was definitely one that stood out.”
Despite liking the match-up, Zebo cautioned: “With Ireland’s style of play, it’s very dangerous if you make errors.
“If there’s lots of handling errors you will get punished immediately. The ruck, the physicality at the breakdown, will be huge.
“If Ireland can match the Springboks and keep their ruck speed at under three seconds they should be good enough to beat them. But it could be a long evening if South Africa get on top physically and slow that ruck ball down.
Simon Zebo is part of the Premier Sports team bringing every game live throughout the Investec Champions Cup season including the Final in May 2026. The tournament kicks off on Friday 5 December with 15 EPCR games live on Premier Sports every weekend. Visit https://www.premiersports.com/gb to join in from just £11.99 a month.
