Ireland have not won a Test match in Australia for 39 years, yet they headed Down Under as heavy favourites.
You have to go back to 1979 to find the last time Ireland got the better of the Wallabies on their home sod. There was the famous World Cup win in 2011 but that game was held across the Tasman Sea in New Zealand and the capacity crowd at Eden Park, that night, were predominantly green.
Ireland’s 12-Test winning streak, a Six Nations Grand Slam, the European domination of Leinster and a Wallabies side in transition have all led to Joe Schmidt’s men touching down in Oz as the team to beat. Australia coach Michael Cheika is keen to play up is side as underdogs but few in the local media are crowing about a series win.
It is all very weird. All very non-Australian.
We were joined by Australian rugby pundit Alex Broun on The Hard Yards and [from 8:00 below] he painted a rosy picture for Irish rugby fans about the three-Test series.
While Broun waxed lyrical on the immense talents on hand for Schmidt – “phenomenal” James Ryan and ‘Irish Jonah Lomu’ Jacob Stockdale – he was not so effusive about Australia. He commented:
“Cheika has some big decisions to make when he sits down to pick that team. Most of the starting 15 come from the Waratahs, and they have been in pretty poor form in the Super Rugby this season, to tell you the truth.
“A lot of the players come from the Rebels too and that is basically a team made up out of combining the Western Force, who are now defunct, and the [Melbourne] Rebels. So they are a team that are just finding their feet.
“And Cheika just keeps throwing Hail Mary passes. I mean Tom Banks has been selected. Tom Banks, eight months ago, was tiling bathrooms and now he’s in the Wallabies squad.
“They’ve got a lot of decisions to make and, also, they have to make them in only six days. They finished playing Super Rugby on Sunday and they play Ireland on Saturday. So, the questions he has to answer in such a short period of time make this incredibly difficult for the Wallabies. I, personally, can’t see anything other than an Irish victory.”
Former Munster and Ireland centre James Downey has watched a bit of Banks in Super Rugby action this season and believes the 23-year-old has been selected on form. Broun suspects Ceika may be deliberately trying to down-play his side’s chances of victory but added, “I think Australia are confident but I’m not sure where that confidence comes from.
“In years past,” he admitted, “there would be an element of down-playing and saying we’re not sure about this and that guy but we’d know 100% how good they really are.
“There are some good players but Michael Hooper, the young captain, is not in great form. Adam Coleman from the Rebels, a lock forward, he’s a great player and you’ll really admire him during the tour. Will Genia has been injured. Kurtley Beale has been a bit up and down.
“The one player who is absolutely outstanding and world-class is obviously Israel Folau but Israel has his own issues revolving around these quite strong tweets he has been sending out about various issues. There’s a bit of a cloud hanging over him.”
The biggest problem, the Sport 360 pundit feels, is at hooker. Veteran No.2 Stephen Moore recently retired and Tatafu Polota-Nau has not been selected after moving to England. Jordan Uelese was next in line but the Rebels hooker was injured in Super Rugby action at the weekend.
“They are bringing in a fourth-choice hooker, Brandon Paenga-Amosa, from the Reds,” Broun notes, “and the fifth choice? I’m not really sure who that is, to be honest!”
For the record, that hooker is 23-year-old Folau Fainga’a. Paenga-Amosa, who is in line to start on Saturday, is a former garbage collector who told Australian reporters that he’ll be ‘doing it for the garbos’ against Ireland.
The other crumbs of comfort, according to Broun, are Reece Hodge and a Wallabies pack that will not dominate their counterparts but hold their own… just about.
