Veteran scrumhalf Conor Murray and powerhouse No 8 Caelan Doris believe Ireland have what it takes level the series against the Springboks in Durban on Saturday.

A thrilling clash at a sold-out Loftus Versfeld last week saw the Irish suffer a 27-20 loss, and their first defeat to South Africa in eight years.

Overall, head coach Andy Farrell said the world champions Boks deserved to win but was proud of Ireland’s ability to fight back from a fizzling start that saw them fall 13-3 behind in the first half.

“There’s hope for next week, I think we could give it a good crack,” Murray, the obvious replacement at No 9 for the sidelined Craig Casey for the Kings Park clash, was quoted by The Irish Independent.

​“I think in fairness, they attacked really well in the first half especially, and we fixed it, or dealt with it better in the second half in terms of our own ‘D’ line. They were going wide-wide quite a bit, which we kind of expected, with Tony Brown as their next attack coach.

“We knew there would be a little bit of a difference from them, but they’ve real good threats out wide. We kind of got our head around that in the second half, and got ourselves back into the game. A couple of moments where we’d like to have done a little bit better.

“They’re World Cup champions, they were back for a first game at home and they really brought it physically. The breakdown was difficult, but as soon as we got a bit of quick ball, we looked dangerous. Andy said, ‘No feeling sorry for ourselves’, and I don’t think we should. We [will] have a right go of it for Saturday.”

Ireland have called in veteran hooker Dave Heffernan and uncapped Nathan Doak after tour-ending injuries to Dan Sheehan and Casey following a bruising encounter in Pretoria.

“The lads are pretty battered in there,” Doris said.

“Definitely a lot of frustration, but it’s a big week coming up so we can’t dwell on it too much. We have to look forward and try to fix some of the things that didn’t go right for us today and try to get a win next week.

“The message in the changing rooms after the game was not to dwell on it, not to sulk too much and feel sorry because there’s still a big game coming next week.

“We want to finish the season on a high with a good performance and a win, so lads are pretty battered but we’ll recover well and get into it.”

Photo: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan via Irish Rugby

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