Cold.

Things are really starting to heat up ahead of Ireland and South Africa’s huge series opener this week and there’s no better man to fuel it than Rassie Erasmus.

The Springboks head coach is as outspoken as they come ahead of the titanic two-Test series between the two sides and things are no different this week.

Ireland have got the better of South Africa in their last three meetings but it’s the Springboks who are back-to-back world champions, while Andy Farrell’s side are still yet to advance past the quarter-final stages.

And Rassie knows exactly what record he’d prefer…

“From their side, they probably have unfinished business to try and get number one. We don’t talk like that,” Erasmus said.”

“We analyse players, we see how they perform in the URC and European Cup, then pick our team from players we think can do the job for us. We train really hard. We try to stay in our reality but our reality is we’re playing at home against a team that has beaten us. All the games were really close, they deserved all of those.

“But it’s never ‘we’ve got a score to settle’.

“I’d rather take a World Cup, two World Cups and a British & Irish Lions series, and take the three loses.”