Ireland prepared for the world champions’ visit to Dublin with a resounding 46-19 win over Australia last week, having started the autumn window with a dismal loss to the All Blacks and an uninspiring win over Japan.
South Africa, however, are in excellent form, winning their past six Tests stretching back to their triumphant Rugby Championship campaign.
Their current run includes an emphatic 43-10 win over New Zealand in Wellington, a 67-30 defeat of Argentina and a hugely impressive 32-17 victory in Paris despite playing half the game with 14 men after De Jager’s dismissal.
The Springboks attack – which is overseen by former All Black Tony Brown – has been boosted by the emergence of fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who has scored six tries in his last four international appearances.
“I think they’ve always had good athletes. I guess whoever plays at 10 slightly changes the dynamics of their team,” said Easterby.
“But [they have] real quality at centre, quality at nine, massive threats on the edges and at 15.”
Easterby added: “I think Tony Brown has done a brilliant job at developing their attack and driving a slightly different system to what they had two years ago. He’s a fabulous coach, but ultimately they still work to a formula of working hard and trying to out-muscle teams.
“They’ll have things up their sleeve which we won’t have seen and we must prepare for stuff we haven’t seen before, but that’s the excitement and challenge and the lads are keen to put themselves under that pressure.”
