Springbok coach Peter de Villiers says his team have had more than enough time to plan their strategy and will be ready for whatever Ireland throw at them this weekend.

The world champions land in Dublin on Thursday and will have a day's rest before bracing themselves for a physical showdown against an Irish squad wanting to open their new Aviva Stadium with a win.

"We know them (Ireland) from a to z," said De Villiers.

"If they are going to change a few things, which we do expect, we will be ready for that too."

South Africa will play five matches on their Grand Slam end-of-year tour, concluding with a game against the Barbarians at Twickenham on December 4.

De Villiers believed set-phase dominance would be crucial in starting the tour with a victory.

"Their first phase and line-outs are very good and they won't allow us any space at the back with Brian O'Driscoll there and the guys who cut down your space with their rush defence," he said.

Bok captain Victor Matfield agreed with his coach that South Africa won't be underestimating Ireland at the set-phases on Saturday.

"They (Ireland) are very good at set-phases, like all the northern hemisphere teams are," he said.

"And it is not like in the southern hemisphere where we use set phases as a launching pad, so they really focus on that."

If there is not a vast improvement in the team's defence, which was atrocious during this year's Tri-Nations when they won only one of six games, the Boks could be in for a fruitless five weeks on the road.

De Villiers identified tackling as another area needing improvement.

"I think we fell short on a few occasions when we caused ourselves problems by not executing well, which led to our defence being a bit of a shambles," he said.

Ireland have World Cup-winning forwards coach Gert Smal on their side, which means South Africa will have to come up with moves which the former Springbok assistant will not anticipate.

"Having a guy like Gert Smal there, who has been at this level for a long time and knows what he is doing, will pose a tough challenge for us," said Matfield.

"Especially at line-out times, he knows me very well, so hopefully we can come up with one or two new ideas."

The South Africans were outclassed in the line-outs in last year's 15-10 loss to Ireland and if Matfield - who is considered a world specialist in that area - has his way, a repeat of last year's blunders will not be tolerated.

"I had a lot of time these last two weeks, so I went through all those things and had a closer look, so hopefully we won't get caught again," he said.