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Ireland

Paul O'Connell expects Ireland to ramp it up against Joe Schmidt's Australia

Osborne, Stockdale, Baird and Furlong ruled out but, otherwise, Ireland will look to field a full-strength side for the Wallabies


  • Nov 26 2024
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Paul O'Connell expects Ireland to ramp it up against Joe Schmidt's Australia
Paul O'Connell expects Ireland

Jamie Osborne, Jacob Stockdale, Ryan Baird and Tadhg Furlong will miss the Ireland game against Joe Schmidt's Australia this Saturday through injury.

Bruising for Ciaran Frawley and Sam Prendergast means Jack Crowley will wear no10, the choosing of his understudy being left until later in the week.

Three players Connacht's Dave Heffernan, Leinster's Jack Boyle and Ulster Nick Timoney have been released back to their provinces.

READ MORE: Jordie Barrett lands in Dublin this week with mischievous Leo Cullen hinting he may be on bench in Belfast on Friday night

READ MORE: Gus McCarthy's Ireland performance against Fiji, a try, three assists and finishing the game in the back-row, was superb

Keeping of Jamison Gibson-Park plus Munster duo Conor Murray and Craig Casey in camp suggests Casey may be receiving treatment following being on the receiving end of a number of very heavy challenges against Fiji.

"Jamie is a big loss," agreed Paul O'Connell of Leinster youngster Osborne, who picked up a lower leg injury just before the half-hour last Saturday. "He's very versatile as well if he is on the bench, he covers so many different positions.

"He's growing all the time and getting better all the time. It's a shame he's out. Hopefully it's nothing too serious and hopefully he's back to us soon."

O'Connell was pleased with the showing against Fiji, suggesting that Ireland had turned a corner after the poor start to the November Series in the opening game against the All Blacks.

"I suppose we were happy with the intent of a lot of what we were doing. We want to play the game a certain way, sometimes it can be a struggle to have the intent while playing that way and I thought the boys were excellent on both sides of the ball.

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"Defensively, we had a look this morning, we had some excellent images of line-speed pressure, ruck pressure, things that Simon would be very satisfied with and then in attack we were good, we had some quick ball and managed to play to space really early.

"There was a lot of good in the game, some good set-piece attacks as well, which is an important part of our game and everyone's game. It certainly was a step up and probably needed to be, and will need to be s step up again this weekend.

O'Connell expects the squad to ramp it up again, against Australia, this Saturday.

"I think the ceiling is very high. We always think that, we always look back on campaigns and we realise how much better we can get. It doesn't have to be overly complicated either for us to get better.

"I think we started slow in the New Zealand game which was frustrating, we could have set the players up a little bit better for success.

"We were playing a bit of catch-up then I think. At the weekend it was very good. The learning for us was that it doesn't need to be complicated, we need to do the simple things really well. When we do the simple things well we're a very good side.

"We're good in attack, hard to beat in defence, but it isn't always easy to do the simple things well."

Ireland (probable v Australia): Keenan; Hansen, Henshaw, Aki, Lowe; Crowley, Gibson-Park, Kelleher, Bealham, Ryan, McCarthy, Beirne, van der Flier, Doris capt

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