'It takes a while to explain I'm Irish' - Josh van der Flier seeing the funny side of internet myth

If you're in any way a follower of rugby on social media, you've seen the jokes by now.

Perhaps it's the Dutch surname, or perhaps it's partly down to the way rugby's residency rules have been manipulated over the years, but Josh van der Flier is not, in fact, South African.

The jokes about Wicklow's Van der Flier being a project player have been around for years, but every time they resurface, people take the bait.

In times like these, when Ireland are facing South Africa, it takes the edge off the tension of a Test week.

"One of the hotel staff started speaking Afrikaans to me. It takes a while to explain I'm actually Irish," the 31-year-old laughs.

"They're seeing the meme of it and thinking 'he must be South African'. I put something on Twitter there a couple of weeks ago and all the comments were like 'you're coming home!'"

Van der Flier isn't heading home, but he is heading back to familiar territory this afternoon in Pretoria.

Three weeks ago, the flanker's club season came to an end at Loftus Versfeld when Leinster fell to a disappointing 25-20 defeat to the Bulls in the semi-final of the BKT United Rugby Championship.

"It is strange, yeah. It's nice to be back. It's a great stadium to play in, I really enjoyed playing in it, obviously the result wasn't great, but normally you'd have to wait a year at least to get to play there again.

"It's exciting now, a different environment and a chance to learn a few things with a new group in a cool stadium," he adds.

That defeat to the Bulls capped off a third year in a row where Leinster have failed to lift a trophy, having won five titles in the four previous campaigns.

The Irish players and coaches have insisted that the disappointing end to the campaign for all four provinces