Ireland are on a collision course with South Africa, if things go according to seeding in the pool stages of the Rugby World Cup, but Paul Wallace is not convinced it’s the preferable route.
Should Joe Schmidt's side top Pool A, containing Scotland, Japan, Russia and Samoa, they would face the runners-up from Pool B, a group with New Zealand and the Springboks, who meet in the opening pool game on 21 September.
The general consensus is that avoiding the back-to-back Webb Ellis winners in the quarter-finals is a must but Wallace, who won 46 Ireland caps and made three Lions appearances, is not so sure.
We need your consent to load this SoundCloud contentWe use SoundCloud to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Ireland, Wallace believes, should take confidence from winning twice in their last three meetings.
"If you look how we beat New Zealand, physically dominating them, we wouldn’t be able to do that to South Africa," Wallace told the RTÉ Rugby podcast.
"And we have something psychologically over them now. It depends; a lot of their great players, [captain Kieran] Reed, in particular aren’t where they were.
"Of course, they are still going to be a quality outfit but even if we had won a Grand Slam handsomely again I would say it’s a 50-50 for getting through to a semi-final just because of the draw we have.
"It’s a terrible draw to have, the option between one of those two teams.
"[But] Ireland will be in a much better place [after the summer games]."
New Zealand, as double World Cup champions, are favourites to top their pool but former Springboks centre Marius Joubert is also sounding a warning lest Irish fans think that recent wins over South Africa in 2014, 2016 and 2017, a 38-3 victory, are indicators of what team will arrive in Japan.
"I think the [game v New Zealand] is going to be a humdinger for us in our pool game," he said.
"Ireland have beaten the Boks quite convincingly so they’ll have the confidence of beating us but we will be a different outfit when we come to the World Cup at the end of the year under Rassie Erasmus.
"We’ve got some nice depth and we’ll be a better side than the one that they played a couple of years ago.
"Ireland is always a difficult side, they were a bit disappointing in the Six Nations but they are still number three in the world, two better than us so it’s going to be interesting."
We will be a different outfit when we come to #RWC2019 - former @Springboks centre @13Juba warns @irishrugby - this and more on the #rterugby podcast out now https://t.co/OdDb7dHL0X pic.twitter.com/0GfLmZNvk8
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) April 3, 2019
