Conor Murray says he is ready to step up to the starting role for Ireland's second Test against South Africa at Hollywoodbets King's Park in Durban on Saturday, after an impressive cameo off the bench against the Springboks.
Ireland last night confirmed that Craig Casey would miss this week's second Test, after suffering a concussion midway through the second half of the 27-20 defeat, with Ulster's Nathan Doak drafted into the squad as back-up.
Andy Farrell will name his team on Thursday, and in addition to Casey's absence, the head coach has other injury problems to contend with.
Hooker Dan Sheehan is also out, and the Leinster man is set for a lengthy spell on the sidelines with a suspected ruptured anterior cruciate ligament, which leaves him as a major doubt for the Six Nations next year.
Robbie Henshaw, Andrew Porter, Bundee Aki and Jamie Osborne are also being monitored for knocks ahead of the game at the home of the Sharks.
Connacht's Caolin Blade will be expected to come onto the bench for his third cap on Saturday, with Murray (below) expected to start.
The experienced Munster man hade a positive impact in his 17-minute cameo, scoring Ireland's second try which briefly got them back into the contest in the final ten minutes.
"I feel good, feel fit, feel good about my game for the last part of the season, ready to rock next week," the 35-year-old said.
"Craig [Casey] played really well, I thought, he had a great game, took a really unfortunate knock."
Murray's try was a variation of the score Hugo Keenan finished off against France in the 2023 Six Nations at the Aviva Stadium, where Ireland engineered space after a goal-line drop-out.
And the scrum-half says those restarts are becoming an important part of the attacking game.
"Yeah, that's part of our attack, there are certain instances where we play special plays, goal-line drop-outs and that one came off.
"It was satisfying, we worked on that during the week. It gave us a chance to stay in the game and get back into it. There are plenty of positives.
"We were not walking out of there with our heads down afterwards. Andy [Farrell] said in the dressing room afterwards and the playing group felt it as well, that we stayed in the fight and gave it a really good go. We go [to Durban] with a pep in our step," he added.
Although Ireland stayed in the fight, the manner of the three South African tries was a source of frustration.
In the first half, Ireland's defence was too passive in the face of a wide South African attack, and while that area of the game was addressed in the second half, the two late Springbok scores came from basic errors, rather than sustained pressure.
"From anyone looking on, and us on the field, they're moments we'd like to deal with a little bit better. If a team scores against you, you'd like to think you'd make them work for it. They're two quick tries, but that's international rugby.
"There's people on their team, [Cheslin] Kolbe and people like that, that can just take advantage. You might get away with it in club rugby but at international rugby you get punished. That's no secret to us, we knew that, but would like to think we'll clean that up in the week and be a little bit tighter than that.
"There's loads more to our game, defensively and attack-wise that we'll be looking at more so. Those things can be freak instances sometimes," he added.
A first ever series win in South Africa is now out of reach for Ireland, but Murray (below) insists Ireland can come back strong at King's Park this Saturday, and finish a long international season on a high.
"There's hope for next week, I think we could give it a good crack next week.
"I think in fairness, they attacked really well in the first half especially, and we fixed it, or dealt with it, better in the second half in terms of our own 'D' line. They were going wide-wide quite a bit, which we kind of expected, with Tony Brown as their next attack coach.
"We knew there would be a little bit of a difference from them, but they've real good threats out wide. We kind of got our head around that in the second half, and got ourselves back into the game. A couple of moments where we'd like to have done a little bit better.
"Overall, a really physical game, they're World Cup champions back for a first game at home and they really brought it physically. The breakdown was difficult, but as soon as we got a bit of quick ball, we looked dangerous.
"Andy [Farrell] said 'no feeling sorry for ourselves', and I don't think we should. We have a right go of it for next week."
