As part of their early season multi-tasking, an Irish squad of 48 players completed their second two-day mini camp of the season under Joe Schmidt yesterday prior to the November Tests. Although the Guinness Series features South Africa and Australia, ranked second and third, as befits the country ranked fifth in the world, the Irish squad are publicly targeting three wins.

"Three from three. Without a doubt," declared Rob Kearney when asked as to his hopes for a series which also includes Georgia. In part this reflects the desire to augment last season's Six Nations title and with it Ireland's status as reigning European champions.

Furthermore, where having a tilt off the All Blacks last year may ultimately have been a distraction when Ireland played Australia a week beforehand, there is no such prized, historic scalp this time. Paul O'Connell highlighted how Australia beat Ireland up physically in the second of the three November Tests a year ago, a week before the All Blacks game, and that seems a particularly apt reminder given the Springboks are first-up this time.

Physicality

“Whatever physicality Australia brought, South Africa are going to bring double,” admitted Kearney. “It’s a collision game and we say time and time again if you’re not there physically, particularly at the breakdown, you haven’t a chance. I think South Africa have won so many games over the last few years just by being more physical than the opposition. Paulie spoke about it in the huddle after the session today. That’s going to be the winning and losing of the game. We have to be massively switched on.”

Kearney's high hopes for the autumn Tests perhaps also reflect an undistinguished Argentina tour which failed, albeit for a variety of factors, to constitute real progress. "No, it didn't," agreed Kearney, who then added: "We never look ahead to World Cups, but we also know in the back of our mind that the teams from the southern hemisphere will be the big teams at that World Cup and we want to be beating those teams."

While it was invariably more uncomfortable coming into an Irish camp after an 'interpro' defeat, Kearney said the Connacht players had been gracious after their victory over Leinster on Friday. "They dug in and showed a huge amount of heart and character. Looking at it from a neutral perspective, it is great that the Sportsground has that and the scenes at the end of the game were great even though I didn't want to be on the end of them."

Upbeat

Leinster have lost two out of their first three games, but noting that they had been here before, Kearney remained noticeably upbeat entering games at home to Cardiff and

Munster

, and Zebre away.

“Last year it took us a long time to fulfil our potential,” he admitted candidly. “If you take away that Northampton away game we had an ordinary enough season and then we got to the Pro12 final. Glasgow were the best team in the league last year and we played really well and put them to the sword.”

“Just from coming back into pre-season the standard of the training, the clarity that we now have around our defence which changed a lot last year. Guys understand it a little bit more and we are starting to look a little bit sharper in attack at times.”