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4 days ago
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The beleaguered Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt has ruefully admitted that the best Australian player on the pitch in his side’s latest calamitous defeat was playing in Irish green.
Mack Hansen, the ex-Brumby who grew up in Canberra and was snapped up by his mother’s home country, scored his hat-trick of tries within the first half-hour to kickstart Ireland’s record 46-19 win over Australia in Dublin on Saturday.
This was the most wretched night of a dismal tour for Australia, who made countless handling errors in the rain, were sluggish in attack, sloppy at the lineout and flummoxed by an aerial bombardment. It leaves the Wallabies one defeat away from a first winless European sojourn in 67 years.
The tour also disfigures the work of a coach who appeared to be transforming Australia’s fortunes; six defeats in seven Tests now makes it feel like it could be back to square one when Les Kiss replaces Schmidt next year.
If they lose to European champions France in Paris next week, it will be five wins from 15 Tests in 2025 – the worst yearly win ratio in Wallabies annals – and they won’t be among the top-six ranked teams in the draw for their home World Cup.
And so Aviva Stadium, the scene of so many of Schmidt’s finest moments as Ireland’s most garlanded coach, this time offered him a dispiriting and sodden night in his farewell Dublin Test.
“A tough one to take,” he sighed.
Especially because at the heart of it was a talent who somehow got away from Australian rugby.
“Unfortunately, Mack was probably the standout Australian player on the field,” Schmidt said ruefully about 27-year-old Hansen.
The winger, who was injured during the Lions tour and only just returned from a niggling long-term foot injury, was razor-sharp all night against Australia as stand-in fullback.
“There’s been a lot of talk that I wasn’t born here and didn’t grow up here – but this feels like home,” said man-of-the-match Hansen. “Any time I get to play for Ireland, it is a privilege.”
Hansen’s early 28-minute hat-trick was compounded by a woeful 10-minute capitulation by Australia before the final whistle when Caelan Doris, Ryan Baird and Robbie Henshaw all scored.
Harry Wilson’s side grabbed first-half scores through Len Ikitau and Fraser McReight, and a 74th minute consolation try from Billy Pollard, but were always playing catch-up.
Hansen’s first two tries were carbon copies of each other as he finished off slick team handling to scuttle under the posts.
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Then, after fly-half Sam Prendergast’s cross-field kick found winger Tommy O’Brien, only for the ball to squirm away from his grasp, Hansen, in typically eccentric fashion wearing one white boot and one black, scooped up the ball and scooted over for his treble.
His five-pointers meant that an Australian-connected player had scored the last five Test tries against the Wallabies, following those of Melburnian Monty Ioane and Louis Lynagh, the son of World Cup winner Michael Lynagh, which won last week’s Test for Italy.
Ikitau and McReight’s tries gave hope with the score 19-14 at the break, but all the possession and poise then came from the hosts, with winger Harry Potter saving Australia by holding up Dan Sheehan on the line before Ireland got unlucky to have an O’Brien try ruled out for an earlier knock-on.
When Doris went over with 10 minutes left and Frost got binned for a shoulder hit on Thomas Clarkson, the game was up, even though Pollard muscled over from short range. Ireland’s storming finish, with two more scores in the last three minutes against depleted opposition, did not flatter Ireland.
Schmidt knew it.
“I know the question around what we are asking of the Australian public – we can’t demand anything on the back of what we did in the last 10 minutes tonight,” he said.
But he said the Wallabies could still win in Paris.
“We were written off before the Lions, and before going to South Africa,” he said.
“I know we didn’t do ourselves justice tonight, but I’m confident we can still fight our way into that contest next week.”
