Facts back White's analysis

Gerry Thornley looks at Jake White's view that Ireland are not a traditional threat to South Africa and talks to Mike Gibson

Jake White's views that at most three Ireland players would compete for a place in the Springbok squad may be honestly felt, but diplomatic they ain't. Thus, in a surprising break with customary pre-match tradition, it has prompted Eddie O'Sullivan to label his counterpart's remarks as "ungracious, derogatory, insulting and condescending". Makes a change from the usual pre-match love-bombing.

When it comes to White's view that Ireland are not, in the heel of the hunt, a traditional threat to Springbok sides, as he says himself, the records verify this - played 16, won one, drawn one, and lost the rest. Ireland have just about managed a try per game, 17, whereas the Boks have scored 54.

Only Ireland's winless record against the All Blacks compares less favourably. Of course, as we all know, the Boks and the Blacks are the super-powers of the world game, where rugby is the number one sport.

Ireland is a smaller rugby-playing nation in which rugby is a minority sport. The numbers have always been stacked against Ireland and to an extent always will be. It isn't rocket science.

"It's simply an acknowledgement of the high quality of players who come out of South Africa and their status within the world game," observes Mike Gibson.

Ireland's record against Australia is comparatively better, in part because rugby union is not such a dominant part of the Australian psyche but also perhaps due to the greater numbers of clashes with the Wallabies.

By comparison, as the then Irish manager Donal Lenihan observed during the tour to South Africa in 1998 (bridging a 17-year gap since the previous meeting) the more infrequent Tests against the Boks and the All Blacks adds to the mystique surrounding them.

There has been a relative glut of clashes in the professional era, this being the seventh in seven years, yet augmenting that sole win in 1965 remains as elusive as ever. That was a pretty decent Irish team, featuring the likes of Tom Kiernan, Kevin Flynn, Mike Gibson, Roger Young, Ken Kennedy, Ray McLoughlin, Willie John McBride, Mick Doyle and Noel Murphy, and they had just come off the back of a strong Five Nations campaign in which they had been denied the championship the previous month in Cardiff by 14-8.

In contrast, the Boks were accepting an option to tour at a time when their season had barely started. There had been objections to it taking place, notably by Western Province, who had opposed it.

In a non-vintage year, the Springboks lost seven of their eight Test matches. The 9-6 defeat at Lansdowne Road was the third leg of a winless five-match tour of Ireland and Scotland - drawing their opener against the Combined Provinces (8-8) in Belfast and losing to the Irish Universities (10-12) in Limerick, the Scottish Districts (8-16) in Hawick, and Scotland (5-8) in Edinburgh.

Gibson featured in both that victory and the ensuing 8-8 draw five years later, so is one of the few players to emerge unbeaten from two games against them.

"My memory of that game was one of being under extreme pressure because of the dominance of the South African pack," he recalls. "We competed everywhere and played a fairly traditional Irish game based on upsetting the opposition and playing the ball into as many areas of discomfort as we could and Tom Kiernan kicked a late penalty to win it for us."

In Gibson's view, Ireland played better in 1980 but were still fortunate to draw. Of course, South Africa's apartheid regime and their relative sporting isolation contributed to the infrequency of meetings with them, although in addition to the vexed 1970 game the IRFU did sanction a controversial tour to South Africa in 1981.

Ireland have given South Africa a couple of scares in their two subsequent visits to Lansdowne Road but, aside from having a bigger pool of players, the Boks are, well, invariably bigger too. With the game revolving around sheer physical power more than ever, Dr Liam Hennessy and O'Sullivan have sought to bridge that gap with an extended conditioning programme in a 10-week pre-season but Springbok rugby players will always be bigger specimens.

As important as that though, will be the top three inches, for as Gibson says: "On Saturday I think we will go out with a victory well within our expectations. The players will have respect for South Africa, of course, but maybe they will not have the fear that other teams have had in the past.

"A victory would do wonders for Ireland, just to confirm the development of recent years," adds Gibson. "We have a back line which, if (Gordon) D'Arcy was there in the centre, would take on any back line in the world."

White clearly begs to differ.