Irish star relishing challenge of facing the World Champion Springboks

The Northern Hemisphere giants will soon arrive in the Republic for a highly anticipated two-Test tour against the four-time World Champions. The Irish boast a positive record against the Springboks of late, winning five out of the last seven clashes. However, they have just one win out of ten attempts on South African soil.

There has been some spice added to the series with verbal barbs thrown from the likes of Eben Etzebeth, Damian de Allende and Cheslin Kolbe - an indication that rectifying this record is a personal mission for the Boks.

And Ringrose is all too aware that will be expressed in physical abrasiveness on the field.

"They're unbelievably physical but that's almost a given, so you just have to be physically ready for the fight at every sort of contact, battle, but [also deal with] the intricacies to how they defend," the centre told The Irish Times.

"And then, on attack, you see last week how dangerous they are, the individuals they have, how cohesive they looked at times in that Welsh game, even with a few new faces. The group seems to be pretty consistent, or [have] a pretty consistent core over the last eight years. You need to be on it, across anything, to try to beat them.

"The connection between the backfield and the frontline is massive. The decision-making at 13 and for the wings is massive against them, because they're so good and have backed it up with two World Cups.

"If you get it wrong you suffer the consequences and that mightn't be the case against other opposition, at club or international, where you can potentially make a mistake and get away with it. The guys they have don't allow for that. It's the beauty of the challenge, I guess."

Ringrose returned from injury to feature in the star-studded Leinster line-up that lost to the Bulls in the United Rugby Championship semi-finals earlier this month. It was his first time experiencing Loftus Versveld, which is also the venue for the opening Test on 6 July.

"It was my first time down in South Africa, and also the first time at altitude, I didn't really know what to expect," recollected Ringrose.

"You feel it in the lungs and the legs maybe a little bit sooner than you would back home. But then it just kind of plateaus as that for the rest of the game, so it's challenging but once you get over it [it's fine].

"I think a few guys who knew what to expect having experienced it before felt it was fine. Thankfully we're out a little bit earlier this time in Johannesburg and we can adapt in some way to it."

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