Springbok coach Peter de Villiers insists there is no friction within his coaching team, despite reports that he looked to bring in outside help after the Tri-Nations.

The Springboks have endured a disappointing start to the year, finishing last in the Tri-Nations and de Villiers is said to have approached both Stormers coach Allister Coetzee and Bulls boss Frans Ludeke for help, undermining the position of his two assistants, Dick Muir and Gary Gold.

"I did chat to other people," De Villiers told Supersport.

"But I never chatted to them to replace Gary and Dick. It was never my intent but I was instructed to go out and see if there are people available who can help out the team, like Os [du Randt].

It was also reported during the competition that de Villiers referred to Gold as "the third best defensive coach in the country," something which he denies.

"I said at the time that the expectations of the public when considering defensive coaches was that the Western Province and Bulls defensive coaches were the best and that Gary is the third best. But he is by no means third best.

"We have had in-depth discussions about many things and the one thing that we highlighted is that defence and fitness are areas where we will have to show a 5% improvement from the players.

"Because our structures are so good, we know we will get the 5per cent from the players and we can turn everything around to be where we need to be.

"Normally we fight about little things between us three coaches. But those are usually small things we don't agree on. One thing we all agree on is being successful and we are determined to win these games on tour."

The World Champions head to the northern hemisphere knowing that poor performances will only give their doubters further ammunition against them and could result in sweeping changes with the World Cup looming ominously large on the horizon.

De Villiers is confident that his men will perform under pressure, building on what he believes is a stable platform.

"I really don't think the last 12 months were that disappointing," explained the 53-year-old.

"All the games we lost, bar one, we were within six points of winning. It is true things didn't go our way, but most of the time we were pretty on the money in trying to execute what we wanted to do.

"We've done a lot of planning with Ireland in mind. The two assistant coaches have done a lot of hard work on Ireland and we have discussed and made it clear where we want to be after that game."

The Springboks open their end of year tour against Ireland at the Aviva Stadium, before facing Wales, Scotland, England and the Barbarians.