Ronan Kelleher says he is excited by the challenge of making a physical statement against the Springboks in Durban after his first Test ended in the disappointment of a yellow card for a penalty try.
Kelleher is set to start at hooker in the second and decisive Test in Durban after Dan Sheehan suffered a knee ligament injury in Ireland’s 27-20 loss at Loftus Versfeld.
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The 26-year-old Leinster star will go head-to-head with Bongi Mbonambi from the start, after the Springboks named an unchanged team for the clash at Kings Park.
“There’s obviously a lot of chat around their physicality and what they can bring, and I suppose it’s a really exciting challenge to try and one-up them physically is the way I’d put it,” Kelleher said.
“It’s a massive challenge I know everyone in the team looks forward to when you play a team like this. You want to set down a marker and pitch up physically.”
Having replaced the injured Sheehan at half time in the first Test, Kelleher produced a linebreak that led to Conor Murray’s score, but was shown a yellow card for his role in the five-metre scrum that led to the decisive penalty try.
“We could have done a lot, we just got it wrong in that moment,” he said. Obviously, it was unfortunate. Again, it’s just them small moments. Maybe on the set-up. I could set a touch more left to get us in better spacing, to be better connected. If we don’t win the set, they beat us to the punch there, then it’s a knock-on effect.
“It helps that it’s their ball as well. Once they see they’ve won that initial punch, they can get the ball in quickly. It’s a knock-on effect of a lot of things and it comes down to the small details we need to get right ourselves. We’re looking already to fix that.
“That belief is there,” Kelleher added. “As we said, [there’s] a lot to fix, just all small things, small things within our control. We know if we get things right, we’ll be in a good place. The belief is massive.”
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