Ireland eyeing Springboks in Rugby Championship sprint

As Ireland's players enjoy the last couple of days of their down-week before returning to World Cup training camp on Sunday night, their tournament rivals are getting down to business.

Garry Ringrose and Hugo Keenan spoke to the media this week outlining the work being done by the 42-man Ireland squad at the HPC in Dublin; A lot of strength and conditioning, some unit work and gameplay. In terms of opposition analysis, that’s for later in the summer.

They may not have been scrutinising their Pool B opponents South Africa, or a potential quarter-final opponent New Zealand, but temptation might now get the better of them, as the Rugby Championship gets underway this weekend.

The truncated Rugby Championship opens on Saturday afternoon with South Africa hosting Australia in Pretoria (4.05pm Irish time), before Argentina host defending champions New Zealand in Mendoza (8.10pm).

As is now normal in a World Cup year, the Rugby Championship will be more sprint than marathon, with just three rounds of games as opposed to the usual six, and the deck stacked against the All Blacks and Argentina who will both be away from home twice.

If Ireland have designs on getting to a World Cup final, all four teams are relevant from their perspective, but the immediate focus will be on South Africa, and what Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber have planned ahead of their Pool B meeting in October.

Four years ago, a developing Springboks used this championship as the foundation on which to build their World Cup title, but with more expectation and pressure on South Africa to perform this time round, their results this month will long be forgotten if they were to retain the Webb Ellis Cup later this year.

As such, Nienaber’s team selection for today’s