Cast your mind back to last year’s second test in the home series between the Springboks and Ireland in Durban. What the visitors brought that day to the game was a frightening physicality that appeared to shock the hosts, who were hanging on at halftime.

The Boks regathered at the break and asserted themselves in the third quarter. They should have won the game, but there were players off the field who might have provided calmer counsel, and better game management, than those who were on it.

Willie le Roux for instance was injured in the first two minutes, and was replaced at fullback by Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who at that point of his career was very callow at international level.

Some mistakes were made when the Boks should just have been managing the game and ensuring it was played in Irish territory, but Ireland were able to slip the noose, with Ciaran Frawley coming on from the bench to snap over a drop-goal to cut the deficit to two points with 10 minutes to go.

And it was Frawley again, with another drop, this time a last gasp effort off the last move of the game, who won it for Ireland, with the surreal silence that descended on Kings Park reminiscent of the scenes that greeted Bryan Habana’s late try that clinched the Bulls their win over the home team, the Sharks, in the 2007 Super Rugby final.

The Boks have advanced since then. Tony Brown’s influence as attack coach was in its embryonic phase in that July series, and the Boks were far from perfect. Of course, Feinberg-Mngomezulu had only just made his international debut a few weeks before that.

He was yet to play as a starter and had just two caps off the bench. Coming on to play 78 minutes at fullback was one heck of an ask.

Now he’s 16 months and several tests wiser, and returned to Kings Park two months ago to score a hat-trick of tries and earn the man of the match award, something he has now started to make a habit of, in a resounding victory over Argentina in the Castle Lager Rugby Championship.

The Boks generally are older, wiser and the game template is, for want of a better word, in a more mature stage.

But one thing that could count against them if Ireland again border on over-compensation in their desire to match the renowned Bok physicality is the noise created around the successive permanent red cards, the most recent which was rescinded, that have blighted the last two games.

Will Ireland feel even more emboldened now to get in the Bok faces, knowing that the South Africans are sure to be on red alert as they try to avoid making it three games in three where they are down to 14 men.

Ireland were only playing Australia last week when their attacking Mojo returned, but it will have given them confidence. The Boks probably can’t afford to go down to 14 against these opponents.

WILLIAMS ISN’T ALONE IN RATING HIS OPPONENT

One thing that Ireland do have that they didn’t have in the shared series in South Africa last year is Jamison Gibson-Park. Some might ask “So what?”, but the reality is that the British and Irish Lions No 9 is arguably in a league of his own when it comes to ability to control a game from the scrumhalf position.

His long pass and kicking game was missed in South Africa, with an injury sustained in Leinster’s loss to the Bulls in the Vodacom URC semifinal a few weeks before the series ruling him out. Ireland will be better for his presence, and no-one knows that better than one of the two Bok scrumhalves who have fronted in most of the big games this season, Grant Williams.

“For me, Jamison is up there with the best No9s in the world at the moment,” said Williams in a press conference in Dublin. “His influence on the game is really good. If I get selected, it will be a good battle.”

Williams’ words echo those of the former world beating Bok scrumhalf Fourie du Preez, who said in a recent interview that Gibson-Park was outstanding when it came to controlling the game and is particularly effective when the team he is playing for has good ruck speed. So that is something the Boks should be trying to do - slow down Ireland's recycling of the ball.

The Boks have lost four of their last five games against Ireland dating back to the 2016 series when the Boks won 2-1 in South Africa under the coaching of Allister Coetzee. Gibson-Park was supreme in the win at the AVIVA Stadium in 2022, and again when Ireland got home by a narrow margin in a tight and physical Pool match in Paris during the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

The Bok team for Saturday night’s game in Dublin will be announced later on Thursday.