Ireland must avoid foul play

The first thing to say about tomorrow's game is that Ireland simply can't allow it to become an overly physical contest

The first thing to say about tomorrow's game is that Ireland simply can't allow it to become an overly physical contest. Australian will come out with some serious intent in the first quarter, I'm quite sure of that, and we'll definitely see a different attitude from them than we saw in the first half in Galway last Saturday.

There will be some big questions asked of this Ireland side, and they'll have to meet fire with fire. Given all that happened over the past week with the Brendan Fevola incident and then the comments of Lindsay Gilbee, of course the Australians will set out to up the physical element. The tackling will definitely be tougher and I expect to see the Australians scrapping a lot more on and off the ball.

Ireland will have to play as hard, but they simply can not get involved in any foul play. If the Australians do resort to that the Irish will have to keep their hands down. If they don't, they'll be playing into the Australians hands, because that's what they'll want us to do, to take our concentration off the ball. Ireland will still want to play without fear, but they'll need to concentrate hard on playing football, their kicking and handling of the ball, which is superior to the Australians. That's Ireland's best chance of holding on to win the series.

I fancy the Australians to come through. I expect it to come down to the final quarter, but I expect the professionalism of the Australians combined with the lessons they learnt last Saturday will be enough to secure a narrow win.

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One of the key areas in this game will be the middle third of the field, where I expect the Australians to dominate with their athleticism and powerful running. Ireland's defence is very strong, with Kieran McGeeney holding down the middle in a sort of sweeping role. He'll need to be just as influential here, but I also felt the Irish were caught a few times with too many men back, that sort of blanket defence which limited their scoring options in the counter attack. At times we were almost clogging our defence. It's also likely they'll man-mark Steven McDonnell so Ireland's forwards will need to give him a lot more support.

Part of that will mean getting more six-pointers. The likes of Benny Coulter and Paul Galvin could have a big role to play there. There is some great scoring talent in the team, much more so than Australia. McDonnell led by example but I was impressed by Tom Kelly, Paul Barden, Colm Begley, Alan Brogan and Seán Cavanagh. Of course Tadgh Kennelly showed his class. Kennelly will need to be even more influential if Ireland are to win.

There are areas where Ireland can improve, such as their kick-outs, but that will mean having big men under the ball at midfield. It might be worth bringing in Darragh Ó Sé or possibly Shane Ryan for this and boost Ireland's physical presence in that area, and maybe win more of the 50-50 balls.

Up front, though, it's still not clear if Kieran Donaghy has a role to play. He struggled with the pace of the game last Saturday, and he just doesn't have the physical strength to fend off the Australians. He is still an out-and-out target man under, say, the diagonal ball, and could be worth persisting with for that reason, but if we can get players running through the middle - Brogan, Barden and Cavanagh - and put support players with them then I think that's still our best way of scoring three-pointers and even goals.

Australia, in contrast, struggled to find scoring forwards and if that's the case here then Ireland have a great chance of winning. When Barry Hall and Ryan O'Keefe were marked out of it the Australians found it very difficult to convert scoring chances.

I still expect the Australians to get far more possession. They will cover ground a lot better than usand the dry conditions and dry ball will suit them. They still prefer to hand pass the ball forward into scoring positions, even though that drains stamina, but the key to their game will be getting a greater scoring return. Ireland can beat that, though, provided they increase their support play.

There's no danger of the Australians running away with it, though. They don't have the scoring forwards and we're too well organised, and if we can secure four or five six-pointers then we're definitely in with a good chance of winning. But Australia still have the greater overall strength.