Ireland captain Dardis savours 'insane' World Cup run

Ireland captain Billy Dardis said Ireland will go for broke in their Rugby World Cup Sevens semi-final against New Zealand after they blew South Africa away in the quarters on Saturday night.

Tries from Mark Roche, Harry McNulty and Jordan Conroy (2) stunned the South African in Cape Town as the underdogs powered to a fully deserved 24-14 win.

Next up, New Zealand on Sunday morning (11.35am, live on RTÉ and the RTÉ Player).

"Insane," Dardis said afterwards when asked how the win felt.

"That's a World Cup quarter-final against South Africa on their own patch. It actually really doesn't get much bigger. We seemed to weather the storm when they had that purple patch in the first half. It's pretty cool to say you're in a World Cup semi-final now.

"We said we wanted to come out here and kill the party a little bit. It's some atmosphere. I think they would have lived on that if they'd got a bit of momentum in the first half, but we did well to get that first try and then keep the pressure on."

New Zealand will be favourites in the last-four showdown but Ireland are playing with terrific panache, and Dardis insists they'll give it everything.

"New Zealand are the only team we haven't beaten on the World Series," he pointed out.

"We've been pretty close the last year or two but yeah, this is massive. The World Cup semi-final against New Zealand - it's going to be class. We're going to be fired up."

An ecstatic Billy Dardis reflects on Ireland superb defeat of South Africa in the Rugby World Cup Sevens 1/4 final. They face New Zealand in the semis tomorrow morning at 11.35am #RTErugby pic.twitter.com/ndQYx9xZiZ

Watch live coverage of the Rugby World Cup Sevens on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player on Sunday from 7am