‘Everyone trained today’ – Simon Easterby says Ireland have a clean bill of health for second Test

The tourists are aiming to bounce back from their 27-20 defeat at Loftus Versfeld by beating the world champions at Durban and they trained at the Northwood College this morning.

Dan Sheehan and Craig Casey were in attendance after being ruled out with injury, but James Lowe, Bundee Aki, Robbie Henshaw, Andrew Porter and Jamie Osborne were all on the pitch for the vision portion of the session and moving freely.

Having been called up at the weekend, Nathan Doak and Dave Heffernan were also training in the sunshine in Durban.

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Henshaw was withdrawn with a head injury at half-time after his mouthguard indicated he’d been in a heavy collision with Siya Kolisi. He’s been following the return to play protocols and Ireland say he’s on track to be involved.

“Everyone trained today,” Easterby said. “Heff and Doaky came in and took part in the session. Everyone apart from Dan and Craig were available and training.

“When you put in a performance that doesn’t match the levels the lads have put in across the last couple of seasons, then there is clearly disappointment.

“There is no better group to take responsibility for that, to get a second opportunity this weekend.”

Andy Farrell names his team at 2pm (Irish time) tomorrow and there’s plenty for him to ponder after their performance against the Boks next week.

Garry Ringrose is likely to come into te midfield, so Farrell must choose between Aki, Henshaw and Stuart McCloskey for the No 12 shirt, while he could be tempted to bring James Ryan into the pack.

While he is expected to keep faith with Peter O’Mahony on the bench, Farrell could also shift Tadhg Beirne into the back-row or start Ryan Baird who impressed off the bench last weekend.

He’s expected to keep faith in Jamie Osborne at full-back, while Jimmy O’Brien is pushing for a spot on the wing.

South Africa named an unchanged 23 for the second Test.

“That’s obviously a vote of confidence after their victory and it’s not unusual I guess. It gives those guys a chance to back up with another performance,” Easterby said.

“We expected a similar type of team and they’ve gone with the same 23, which probably makes it a little easier previewing them because we know a lot of their individuals and we’re aware of a lot of strengths in their team.”

Defence coach Easterby has plenty of work to do this week after South Africa had plenty of joy with ball in hand last weekend.

“They put the ball into space, which we anticipated, but we didn’t deal with that as well as we should have done,” he said.

“Sometimes, a team will find a way to get into space, we didn’t shut that down in the way that we would normally do.

“There are plenty of fixes for that but essentially, we have to be better on both sides of the ball especially in the first half.

“As the game went on we grew massively into the game and we finished strongly. We will take a lot of confidence from that.

“You can’t give a side like South Africa the type of space that we allowed because they have too many quality players to put you under pressure and take advantage of that space.

“If you lose a few collisions, you are on the back foot, it is a bit of a spiral of negativity; you have to try and create something within that, whether that is the communications, whether that is individuals working within that working a little bit smarter and finding a way to find solutions.

“It is probably a combination Murray of things that we didn’t quite get right in that first 20 minutes when they got some decent gains from us.

“After halftime we fixed a lot of those things, and we were much more difficult to break down. I thought in the second half we were much better both sides of the ball.

“They can play a couple of styles of game with their forward pack, the ability to win the gain-line and the collisions in (playing) a little bit tighter but they also have since we have been playing them over the last few years they have some backs that can play with space, play with footwork, have that kicking game and with Tony Brown’s inclusion that adds another dimension to the way they can attack.”