Sport

Powerful Irish pack can defuse the South African bomb squad

While getting the edge on the enigmatic Rassie Erasmus’s in-form Springboks will be challenging, former Irish international Jordi Murphy believes Andy Farrell’s men are up to the task

Ireland’s Bundee Aki, Rob Herring and Peter O’Mahony can match South Africa in terms of physicality while Jamison Gibson Park’s passing is ‘whippier’. Picture: INPHO

Getting inside the mind of Rassie Erasmus, South Africa’s director of rugby, is a virtually impossible task.

How can you predict the moves of a man oversaw the selection of a substitutes bench with just one back and seven forwards? Who follows only the Scottish rugby union on Twitter in what presumably is some sort of very public psychological move? Who unveiled a traffic light system to signal to his players from the stands during ...