{"id":142523,"date":"2025-11-16T07:46:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T07:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/142523\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T07:46:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T07:46:07","slug":"best-australian-player-was-wearing-irish-colours-wallabies-coach-says-after-heavy-loss-australia-rugby-union-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/142523\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Australian player was wearing Irish colours, Wallabies coach says after heavy loss | Australia rugby union team"},"content":{"rendered":"

The beleaguered Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt has ruefully admitted that the best Australian player on the pitch in his side\u2019s latest calamitous defeat<\/a> was playing in Irish green.<\/p>\n

Mack Hansen, the ex-Brumby who grew up in Canberra and was snapped up by his mother\u2019s home country, scored his hat-trick of tries within the first half-hour to kickstart Ireland\u2019s record 46-19 win over Australia in Dublin on Saturday.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The tour also disfigures the work of a coach who appeared to be transforming Australia\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

If they lose to European champions France in Paris next week, it will be five wins from 15 Tests in 2025 \u2013 the worst yearly win ratio in Wallabies annals \u2013 and they won\u2019t be among the top-six ranked teams in the draw for their home World Cup.<\/p>\n

And so Aviva Stadium, the scene of so many of Schmidt\u2019s finest moments as Ireland\u2019s most garlanded coach, this time offered him a dispiriting and sodden night in his farewell Dublin Test.<\/p>\n

\u201cA tough one to take,\u201d he sighed.<\/p>\n

Especially because at the heart of it was a talent who somehow got away from Australian rugby.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, Mack was probably the standout Australian player on the field,\u201d Schmidt said ruefully about 27-year-old Hansen.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of talk that I wasn\u2019t born here and didn\u2019t grow up here \u2013 but this feels like home,\u201d said man-of-the-match Hansen. \u201cAny time I get to play for Ireland, it is a privilege.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hansen\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Harry Wilson\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Hansen\u2019s first two tries were carbon copies of each other as he finished off slick team handling to scuttle under the posts.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to Australia Sport<\/p>\n

Get a daily roundup of the latest sports news, features and comment from our Australian sports desk<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

Mack Hansen scores a diving try in his black and white boots. Photograph: Brian Lawless\/PA<\/p>\n

Then, after fly-half Sam Prendergast\u2019s cross-field kick found winger Tommy O\u2019Brien, 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Test for Italy.<\/p>\n

Ikitau and McReight\u2019s 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\u2019Brien try ruled out for an earlier knock-on.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s storming finish, with two more scores in the last three minutes against depleted opposition, did not flatter Ireland.<\/p>\n

Schmidt knew it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the question around what we are asking of the Australian public \u2013 we can\u2019t demand anything on the back of what we did in the last 10 minutes tonight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But he said the Wallabies could still win in Paris.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were written off before the Lions, and before going to South Africa,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI know we didn\u2019t do ourselves justice tonight, but I\u2019m confident we can still fight our way into that contest next week.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The beleaguered Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt has ruefully admitted that the best Australian player on the pitch in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-142523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}