{"id":276476,"date":"2025-11-11T00:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T00:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/276476\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T00:06:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T00:06:10","slug":"wallabies-greats-bold-tip-before-interesting-ireland-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/276476\/","title":{"rendered":"Wallabies great\u2019s bold tip before \u2018interesting\u2019 Ireland clash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wallabies great James Slipper<\/a> has forecast a shock Quilter Nations Series upset ahead of this weekend\u2019s Tests, believing Australia<\/a> can return to winning ways against Ireland<\/a> if they \u201cmuster up a good week of prep\u201d in Dublin.<\/p>\n

\u2018Slips\u2019 last played for the Wallabies in their final Rugby Championship<\/a> match of the year, falling to the All Blacks<\/a> at Perth\u2019s Optus Stadium. Australia finished The Rugby Championship with a 33 per cent winning record, which included a famous triumph over the Springboks in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n

The Wallabies started their new era without the 151-Test veteran with a thrilling four-point win over Japan<\/a> in Tokyo, before suffering an 18-point defeat to England<\/a> at Twickenham\u2019s Allianz Stadium and a 26-19 loss to Italy<\/a> in Udine.<\/p>\n

Before the Rugby World Cup<\/a> Draw early next month, the Wallabies will play another two Tests in a bid to rise up the rankings and into the top band of six teams. They\u2019ll face Ireland and France<\/a> in their final two matches of 2025, who are ranked third and fifth respectively.<\/p>\n

Australia were beaten by Ireland 22-19 in a thriller during their 2024 Spring Tour, before many of the Irish players toured with the British & Irish Lions<\/a> earlier this year. While the Wallabies will go into the Test as the underdog, Slipper isn\u2019t ruling his former teammates out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always the interesting thing around this time, the Irish are just getting back together after a bit of a refresh year from the Lions,\u201d Slipper said on Stan Sport\u2019s Between Two Posts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Wallabies are on the opposite end of that, they\u2019re going into their 14th Test so there\u2019s going to be two different tales there, one\u2019s pretty fresh, one\u2019s hanging on a bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can muster up a good prep week\u2026 it\u2019s going to be close either way but I reckon we\u2019ll win.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wallabies are almost through a jam-packed international season, which began with a last-gasp win over the Flying Fijians in Newcastle. That was the team\u2019s only match before the three-Test series against the touring Lions.<\/p>\n

After a relatively one-sided first Test, the other two matches of the Lions Series were classics, with the men in gold winning the third clash at Accor Stadium in Sydney. They backed that up with an incredible comeback win over the Springboks at Emirates Airline Park.<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s been a fair amount of chatter about whether the wear and tear of a 15-Test season has been a factor for the Wallabies, Slipper was able to respond with the perspective of a 2025 Wallaby..<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s manageable. There\u2019s always talk around, \u2018why do we rest players? Why do we do that?\u2019 If you play every Super game, every Test, you\u2019re looking at over 30 games, plus you\u2019re going around the world a couple of times,\u201d Slipper added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s manageable but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s great for the Wallabies per se. You would not find one Australian rugby player who will say no to playing 15 Tests either.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing you won\u2019t hear from the group and Joe [Schmidt] in particular is they won\u2019t use it as an excuse. I\u2019m pretty sure he said that after the game, like they know what\u2019s coming.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wallabies great James Slipper has forecast a shock Quilter Nations Series upset ahead of this weekend\u2019s Tests, believing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-276476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}