Ireland captain William Porterfield says his side are not putting any extra pressure on themselves ahead of a crunch World Cup clash against Zimbabwe.

Successive wins against West Indies and the United Arab Emirates gave Ireland every chance of progressing to the quarter-finals through Pool B.

A 201-run thrashing against South Africa put a significant dent in their net run-rate, though, increasing the importance of the Zimbabwe match at Blundstone Arena in Hobart on Saturday.

Now in fifth position in the group, behind West Indies and Pakistan on run-rate, and with a tough match against India still to come, victory for Ireland is seen as crucial to their hopes of progression.

But Porterfield will not placing added significance on the clash and said: "You've got to put it [South Africa loss] behind yourself pretty quickly.

"The tournament's back-end fixtures come pretty quickly for ourselves.

"I don't think it is make or break [on Saturday]. Every game for ourselves, we've gone into it looking for those two points.

"We did it against the West Indies, UAE... and against Zimbabwe it's not going to be any different.

"[If] we pick up two points, then we're on six, and then we move into the India game.

"But we're going to prepare for Hobart as we have every other game. It's a pretty big two points for us [if we can get them]."

Ireland batted superbly to chase down big totals and win their first two games, but they were left with a near-impossible task after South Africa smashed them to all corners in making 411-4.

Their spinners, led by George Dockrell, performed admirably, but seamers John Mooney and Max Sorensen were hammered. Alex Cusack could be recalled to add depth to their bowling stocks.

Zimbabwe sit sixth in the pool with one win from four games but will feel they should have claimed at least one more match.

Chasing 236 to win against Pakistan, they fell short, bowled out for 215, despite being 128-3.

Tendai Chatara (3-35 off 10 overs) led Zimbabwe's attack well on that occasion but their batting collapse cost them an upset victory.

With Ireland's bowling attack struggling though, Zimbabwe's batsmen know they will get a chance to make amends.

And if they can take it with both hands, Ireland's hopes of making the last eight could be dashed.