The temperature is close to freezing but the good news is there’s very little wind inside Croke Park.

An earlier forecast suggested the mercury would climb no higher than six degrees Celsius on match day, but my car’s thermometer revealed a frigid one degree at 12:30pm local time. The stadium lights are on and there’s a dense fog surrounding the ground, but the blustery conditions that threatened to settle have not materialised.

This will help Springbok tactical kickers Fourie du Preez and Morne Steyn who talked about the wind factor earlier in the week. Now the Boks just need to overcome the cold, as the first 10 minutes are always crucial in terms of establishing physical dominance.

The IRFU is expecting 75 000 people at Croke Park today, which is a sell-out considering they’ve put more seats into the standing section on the hill.

Bakkies Botha has been an injury concern since last Sunday and was never going to be fit for this fixture. Although they will miss him in the tight, the Boks have anticipated his omission and trained with Andries Bekker in the starting line-up for the better part of the week.

As the hosts, Ireland don their white alternate strips with the Boks wearing the traditional green and gold jersey. There’s plenty of South Africans sitting in the crowd who are wearing the self-same jerseys, but at this stage they’re obscured by several layers of warm clothing. The Dublin city centre has been saturated with Saffas this week, so the Boks can expect plenty of support.

By Jon Cardinelli, in Dublin

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 28th, 2009 at 3:36 pm and is filed under JC on tour, Springboks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.