Tony Brown: 'We've put a lot of time and effort into analysing Ireland'

Given Ireland's history with Tony Brown, the first half of the 27-20 defeat to South Africa last Saturday shouldn't have come as much of a shock.

The New Zealander had been attack coach to Japan when they beat Ireland at the 2019 Rugby World Cup, as the Brave Blossoms produced a stunning attacking display to pull off one of the biggest shocks in the history of the tournament.

Now working under Rassie Erasmus at the Springboks, Brown is looking to expand the gameplan of the world champions which, if successful, could spell trouble for a lot of countries in four years' time.

It's very early days in this World Cup cycle, but the first signs of a more open and expansive Springbok attack were evident in Saturday's first Test.

All week, Ireland's players and coaches insisted they had been doing their homework on what to expect from the South African attack, based on the Boks' previous game against Wales last month. However, Andy Farrell was left frustrated by his side's passive defending in the first half, which gave up a try inside three minutes to Kurt-Lee Arendse.

And Brown says his team's wide-wide strategy had been devised with Ireland's commitment to disrupting the ruck in mind.

"We always plan the attack around the teams that we're playing, so we've put a lot of time and effort into analysing Ireland around how they defend, how they attack the breakdown, so we saw a few opportunities," he said this afternoon.

"Ultimately, we always look to plan around the team we're playing."

For such a plan to work, a team has to have the cattle around the pitch to win their own breakdown, particularly in the face of an Irish pack that have established ball-winners like Tadhg Beirne, Caelan Doris, Josh van der Flier and Peter O'Mahony.

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