Even for an Irish fan, the current Irish rugby union team has both good and bad spots.
The scrum will do well, with Cian Healy making up for the immobility of Mike Ross around the park. The lineout may be shaky, even with Paul O’Connell and 6’11” giant Devin Toner, as Rory Best’s darts don’t always hit the mark.
The back row will be competitive, supplying and disrupting as well as the Wallabies – remember, Sean O’Brien and Jamie Heaslip both started Test matches on the Lions Tour.
All in all, it’s a powerful if slightly immobile tight five. Still, you should watch out for the carrying of Healy and O’Connell, and the breakdown work of Healy and Best, plus a well-balanced back row that will cause problems.
The halves pairing of Conor Murray and Jonny Sexton are some of the best in this hemisphere, who again both played huge roles for the Lions.
With Genia not at his best, scrum half will be a very interesting battle. Don’t ask me to call the battle of Cooper and Sexton – this is one of the match-ups of the Test window. One could conjure something from nothing (and probably will), the other cool, composed with an underrated running threat.
I will run out of words if I mention Brian O’Driscoll any more than this, but his partner – whether the highly rated youngster Paul Marshall or Gordon D’Arcy – will be solid though unspectacular. If it is D’Arcy, he and O’Driscoll will be the most experienced centre pairing in history.
The same can be said of wing Fergus McFadden and to a lesser extent Rob Kearney, who has lost the form and cutting edge of ’09 and ’12, but glimpses of his counter attacking brilliance are being caught this season.
If Tommy Bowe plays he will be one of four backs who can do damage – he has a knack for being in the right place, though if he succumbs to injury Dave Kearney will come in. Inexperienced at this level, but with a nose for the tryline, it will be nerve racking for us to see him face up against the Wallabies.
It’s a solid backline that won’t let too many easy tries in, but there is creativity in Murray, Sexton and O’Driscoll that can be finished by the rest.
One quick word on Joe Schmidt, the new coach. Hailed in this part of the world as one of the smartest and most innovative coaches around, he ended Clermont’s 100 year wait for a title as backs coach, then led Leinster to an unprecedented two Heineken Cups, a domestic title and an Amlin Cup (second tier European Cup) in three years.
This man will get the backs moving, as he did at Leinster, and use the tough pack to his (and our) advantage.
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Joe Schmidt achieved much of his success by making Eddie Jones look like a Pomeranian, with his coaching methods reported as tough, unpleasant and even brutal.
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