South Africa v Ireland: Springboks add to hype ahead of Ireland series with promotional video

Jasper Wiese and Andrew Portersquare off during the Rugby World Cup pool match between South Africa and Ireland. Photo / Photosport

The Springboks have added to the hype ahead of this opening test against Ireland with a social media post, including a subtle dig at the All Blacks.

The World Cup winners and the world’s second ranked team will square off at Loftus Versfeld on Sunday morning. It will be South Africa’s first test at home after beating the All Blacks in the World Cup final, winning their season opener against Wales at Twickenham last month.

Ireland are coming off winning the Six Nations title in February.

A video shared by the official Springboks account on X starts off with images of South Africa facing the haka along with the words ‘For a long time two nations ruled international rugby but in 2023 a new contender emerged...’ before cutting to shots of Ireland’s pool play win over the Boks at the World Cup.

Ireland went on to top the group but failed to reach the semifinals when they were defeated by the All Blacks in the quarter-finals.

Ireland also beat South Africa in 2022 and 2017.

Unfinished business 😳#Springboks #ForeverGreenForeverGold pic.twitter.com/GFz5s12nib

— Springboks (@Springboks) July 2, 2024

In a press conference yesterday, Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus said his side isn’t concerned about unfinished business despite the fact their last win over Ireland was in 2016.

“We don’t use those kinds of words,”

“I think they probably from their side have unfinished business to try and get the world number one ranking again, but we don’t talk like that.

“We try to stay in our reality, and our reality is that we are playing at home against the team that has beaten us,” he said.

“All the games were really close, and they deserved all of those games, but it’s never ‘hell we have got a score to settle’.

“I mean, I would rather take the World Cup – two World Cups – and a British and Irish Lions series and take the three losses, but we never go out to lose. We definitely didn’t pick this team to try and lose,” Erasmus added.