From one iconic venue to another, but Ireland will be stepping into something of the unknown at Ellis Park in Saturday's second Test. Now known as Emirates Airline Park, no Irish team has ever played an international here before and Jamie Heaslip is the only member of the squad to have played a Test here. There's also the minor matter of playing at altitude.
Scene of Nelson Mandela wearing a Springbok jersey and handing over the William Webb Ellis trophy to Francois Pienaar in 1995, since their re-admittance into the game in 1992, the Springboks have played 25 Tests there.
In winning 18 of those games, drawing one and losing six, a striking feature of matches here is their high-scoring rate. The Springboks have scored 834 points, an average of over 33 points per game, while conceding 540, an average of almost 22.
They have only won two of their last five Tests here, although the All Blacks had to be at their best to win 27-20 in July last year and in their epic 38-27 win of October 2013, and the Lions’ win in July 2009 was a dead rubber after the Boks had won the first two Tests.
In that time, the Boks beat the All Blacks 27-25 in October 2014 and England by 36-27 in the corresponding second Test on this weekend four years ago.
World Cup final
Prior to that, the Boks had won 17 of 18 Tests here (losing to France in 2001) an in addition to the World Cup final, three of those wins came against the All Blacks, by 32-25, 46-40 and 40-26. You get the drift.
Ireland’s strength and conditioning coach Jason Cowman, and the nutritionist, Ruth Wood-Martin, have been advising the players on how to prepare over the last two weeks. But the proof will be in the pudding.
As skills coach Richie Murphy put it: "The fear is that the guys can't get their breath; that it takes them longer to recover which would obviously affect their thinking and make them slower to react.
"South Africa, when they get teams on the Highveld, they normally start very, very quickly. I'm sure they'll be trying to do that again. So us trying to manage our way into the game early on will be important."
“I’ve been lucky to play there, it’s a cool stadium,” said Heaslip. “It’s going to be such a cauldron and really exciting.”
Heaslip also played in the Lions' 74-10 win over the Golden Lions in 2009, although Keith Earls played in neither match at Ellis Park. Of South African-born trio, CJ Stander has been ruled out anyway, while Jared Payne played there in his time with the Chiefs and the Crusaders "once or twice, I can't really remember; a couple of times anyway."
For this reason, he is not even sure of the altitude factor.
“It’s been so long I can’t really remember, to tell you the truth. It probably will be a bit of a factor. You don’t really know until you play, you can train all you want, but you never know until the game happens.”
The ball did not noticeably travel further at yesterday’s training, although the cloudy weather and cool temperatures of around five or six degrees meant conditions were more “like training at home really”, according to Murphy, with the forecast is to become warmer as the week progresses.
“The ball travelled a little bit further and the lungs maybe burned a bit,” said Payne. “But I played a Test on the weekend and the body’s always going to be a bit more tired.”
Payne seemed to revel in the greater freedom afforded him by playing his first Test at fullback, although he maintained: “Just getting picked is good and once you get out on the field, past one or two phases, it’s just rugby. You get to do what you love. I’m just happy to be out there. If it’s 13 or 15 it doesn’t matter.”
Payne also accounted for four of Ireland’s seven offloads. “They’ve always said that if it’s on you throw it and they’ve said it’s the right thing to do, so he [Joe Schmidt] was happy enough. He didn’t tell me off or anything,” he said, laughing.
“No, you’ve always got the freedom and you just do it. It’s just rugby, you don’t really think about whether you should or you shouldn’t; you just do it. If it’s there, you play it, if it’s not you don’t. You don’t have it going through your head whether you’re allowed to or not. There’s none of that chat. There never has been. You’re always encouraged to play what’s in front of you.”
Last-ditch tackle
Payne also received some slagging from team-mates as his last-ditch tackle on JP Pietersen was actually his only tackle of the match, but looking ahead to the second Test he said: “We need to improve massively not only physically, we’re going to have to go to a darker place again mentally. We’re going to have to be more on the ball.
“We’ve identified areas that we can improve on and it’s both mental and physical, so if we can do that and raise our game then hopefully we can meet the level that the Boks will be at. Because I guarantee you, they’ll be a lot better as well.
“The Boks who will be coming back angry at Ellis Park,” added Payne. “It’ll be tough with those big boys charging at you. It will be different at Ellis Park than Cape Town. They’ll have had another week together and it should be a step up again.”
