Australia coach Robbie Deans expects much the same challenge from Ireland as his side got from England at Twickenham last weekend, but despite a relatively straight forward victory in London the New Zealander insists he is not taking the Grand Slam champions lightly.
The Wallabies arrive in Dublin buoyed by their 18-9 victory in which their hosts never looked likely to cross the line, though England led at halftime courtesy of some Australian indiscipline and the boot of Jonny Wilkinson.
Deans is mindful of Ireland’s achievements earlier this year and expects his side to have to front up in the early exchanges before settling into their patterns.
“I don’t know if the challenge of facing Ireland will be that different to England,” he said. “The first 20 minutes will be full on as they’ll come out very passionate in front of a capacity crowd.
“We’ll have to weather that and get going ourselves. You don’t get to be Grand Slam champions lightly.
“They’ll have a lot of belief because of what they did in the Six Nations.
“If you combine that with playing at Croke Park, they’ll take some containing.”
Declan Kidney will make a decision on hooker Jerry Flannery before naming his line-up for Sunday’s clash at lunchtime tomorrow, but the prognosis looks good after the Munster man took part in training today.
Flannery is nursing a calf injury and Kidney has left the hooker berth on the A side to face Tonga vacant because he may yet need to start either John Fogarty or Seán Cronin.
Otherwise the only other area of debate would appear to be at inside centre, where Gordon D’Arcy and Paddy Wallace are in contention. If D’Arcy gets the nod and Flannery starts, the only change from the side that defeated Wales 17-15 in March to clinch the Grand Slam would be Cian Healy for prop Marcus Horan.
Horan has been ruled out until the New Year after undergoing an unspecified medical procedure. His Munster team-mate John Hayes completed his five-week ban for stamping on Saturday and will go straight into the frontrow despite his recent lack of match time.
Kidney has frequently spoken of the need to develop a squad but given it is the Wallabies visiting Dublin this weekend, too much experimentation would appear unlikely.
Fiji six days later are opposition better suited to trying out new combinations, with Ireland’s autumn reaching its climax against world champions South Africa the following week.
Ireland have beaten Australia just twice in their last seven meetings, dating back to 2002, and only eight times out of 27 in total.
