O'Connell Ruled Out of Saturday's Encounter With Springboks

Munster's Paul O'Connell is the latest Irish player to miss Saturday's test with South Africa. He has failed to recover from a back injury which has forced him to miss the majority of the Irish training in the past week.

Ireland are already without Brian O'Driscoll, Stephen Ferris, Rob Kearney, Rory Best and Sean O'Brien. O'Connell was also one of the favourites to take over from the captaincy from O'Driscoll. It now looks likely that Jamie Heaslip will lead the side out for Saturday's encounter.