Tommy O’Brien says he hasn’t “felt out of place” in the Ireland set-up since winning his first cap in the summer.
The Leinster wing scored two tries in each of the summer tour games against Georgia and Portugal, and has started in all of Ireland’s autumn series games to date, bringing his cap tally to five.
In last week’s 46-19 win over Australia, the 27-year-old’s play-making ability shone through as he laid on a try for Mack Hansen and with five starts in as many games, feels he can make an impact when given the chance.
“I’ve loved and embraced any opportunity I’ve gotten,” he said in the build-up to Saturday’s final autumn game against South Africa.
“These November games are obviously a step up from the summer, but I haven’t felt out of place. It feels like where I belong and I can definitely contribute to the team.”
Although disappointed with their showing against New Zealand in Chicago when their autumn schedule got off to a losing start, Ireland responded with a win at home to Japan before making huge improvements in their victory over the Wallabies.
This weekend represents the ultimate test against the back-to-back world champions with South Africa arriving in Dublin with the momentum of six wins in their last six games.
O’Brien has been impressed with their willingness to experiment with their game and although the Springboks may not quite have the same aura as peak New Zealand from the early 2010s, he feels they represent a huge task.
“It’s slightly different to some of those All Blacks’ teams from 2011 to 2015 where it just didn’t seem like they would lose a game,” he offered.
“South Africa seem to have got it right in terms of peaking at the right time for those World Cups. They’ve lost games in between but that’s down to some of the innovation they’ve tried to introduce and you can see that with some of the benches they have used, he seven-one split and things like that.
“They are not afraid to try a few things and we are all keeping an eye on how they are innovating but the nuts and bolts of South African rugby are still the same.
“They are still hugely physical, are going to work unbelievably hard and are very passionate, so it’s something they have.”
