Though he's struggling with the ankle injury which sidelined him in last Saturday's win over Argentina, Owen Finnegan is under as much pressure to play against Ireland on Saturday as he is to provide tickets for his extended Irish clan. All told, he's used the goodwill of his Wallaby team-mates to procure 44 tickets for the match. Clearly therefore, an Irish clan.

"He needs to complete Thursday's training to be available for Ireland which hopefully he will," said Eddie Jones yesterday, adding with a smile: "We're pretty confident he'll be right, he's got a big family here and he wants to play."

A big family? His father Patrick, who comes from Meath, has 13 brothers and sisters, while his mother Josephine, from Passage in Cork, has 14 brothers and sisters.

"I reckon I've over 100 first cousins," admits Finnegan, who has two brothers and two sisters. His parents emigrated to Australia 36 years ago, and the 30-year-old is the only one of the five born in Australia. The clan will congregate in Dublin on Friday night, and were also playing host to Finnegan at a meal last night. "I've no idea how many will be there. I'm not organising it, I'm just a guest."

Obtaining 44 tickets wasn't quite the logistical nightmare it sounds.

"The squad are entitled to about 150 tickets between them and they've been able to help me out. Last week in Argentina Patricio Noriega needed about 40 as well and it was the same story for him. Next week, with so many Australians in London, the demand will be much greater, so this wasn't a bad week to have to get so many tickets."

Only one of his 50 Tests was against Ireland, when coming on as a replacement in the 1999 World Cup pool match. In that stage of his career the strong-running, game-breaking Finnegan was primarily considered an impact replacement - though since scoring a try in the World Cup final he has started his last 17 Test matches.

If he plays on Saturday, it's likely to be in the second row, given this is one of the selection options Jones says he'd like to look at on this tour.

Having broken into the New South Wales under-19 set-up 12 years ago, playing for Ireland was, Finnegan admits, never really considered. However, it's believed he's been approached by Munster before and he admits, "after the World Cup I'd like to come over here and play for one of the provinces. As my parents are from Cork and Meath, it would have to be Munster or Leinster."

A successor to Jim Williams, perhaps?