David Humphreys: Ireland v South Africa Talking Points

Former Ulster and Ireland out-half David Humphreys looks ahead to the mouthwatering clash between Ireland and world champions South Africa in Paris.

For too many years, Ireland spent more time worrying about stopping the opposition playing than they did about how they were going implement their own game plan.

Many of us who played through that period look on very enviously at the confidence, quality and expectation that Ireland now bring to every performance.

Two games into this World Cup, it couldn't really have gone much better for Ireland and it looks and feels very different to the how we have started the last few tournaments. Not that you would have believed it when reading some of the match reports highlighting errors and a lack of quality to parts of the performances. World Cups aren’t won in the pool stages, and while they can be lost if you get it badly wrong, Ireland have done everything they needed to do in terms of building slowly into the competition.

Andy Farrell has got it exactly right with his team selection so far and being able to pick from pretty much a full squad is exactly what he would have hoped for in the build-up to today’s game. It doesn’t feel quite right that the top two ranked teams in the world are playing against each other in the pool stages, but maybe this is the perfect dress rehearsal for the World Cup final. Ireland have had the edge over South Africa in recent years and despite two very different styles of play, there is very little between the two teams at their very best.

A lot is written about South Africa’s power and physicality, traits that have always dominated rugby in that country, but Ireland have shown they can match anyone physically and their point of difference is the pace