Rory Best urges focused approach as Ireland look to create history
Saturday 18 June 2016 10:07, UK
Ireland captain Rory Best has urged his team to remain focused as they attempt to make the most of their "opportunity to create history" against South Africa at Ellis Park on Saturday.
The Ulster hooker led his team through their final preparations at the Johannesburg venue ahead of the bid to follow the All Blacks and the British and Irish Lions into the record books as the only teams to win a three-match series in South Africa.
It was their first away win over the World Cup semi-finalists, but they are keen not to dwell on past glories.
"Motivation-wise, it's never an issue for us," said Best.
"If you talk to any international player, pulling on a Test jersey is special. We know, the same as last week, there's an opportunity to create history here.
"We took a step forward last week in terms of being the first [Ireland] team to [win here]. Now, we have an opportunity to win a Test series which is unbelievably difficult to do.
"That's probably the big driver this week, that it's going to take a phenomenal performance to win here.
"There's a reason why so few teams come here and win a Test series and that's because it's hard to do.
"So for us it's about making sure that we get ourselves right, we do the same homework if not more homework than we did last week on the Springboks and we make sure that we're in a position [to win].
"We know the Springboks aren't going to hand history to us, we have to take it ourselves. That's going to be the tough challenge and I suppose that's the challenge that you're up for."
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The match will be a special occasion for South African born lock Quinn Roux, who lines up against the country of his birth for the first time on his international debut.
He follows in the footsteps of replacement hooker Richardt Strauss and Best acknowledged that it will be an unusual debut for Pretoria-born Roux.
"It's something that Quinn, along with CJ and Straussy, invested in a number of years ago when they moved to Ireland," added Best.
"It's an accumulation of a lot of hard work for Quinn. It's a special day pulling on a Test jersey for the first time and he'll obviously be very nervous, especially in front of probably a lot of friends and family.
"What we always say to all the debutants is you've got to relax and enjoy it, especially this next 24 hours.
"There's something really special about the build-up to an international, the nerves, the butterflies, everything that goes with it and you've got to enjoy that."
Watch South Africa v Ireland on Saturday. Coverage begins on Sky Sports 1 HD at 3:30pm.
