{"id":532947,"date":"2026-07-04T16:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T16:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/532947\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T16:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T16:34:13","slug":"australia-31-33-ireland-game-changer-hugo-keenan-shines-on-ireland-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/532947\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia 31-33 Ireland: &#8216;Game-changer&#8217; Hugo Keenan shines on Ireland return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Characteristically solid in the air and sharp with ball in hand, Keenan shone at both ends of the field. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was his crucial intervention that stopped Australia surging into a 31-12 lead before half-time when he hauled Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii down in front of the Irish tryline. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It wasn&#8217;t the Leinster back&#8217;s only defensive contribution, but it came at a critical time when the game was in danger of slipping away from the Irish, and laid the platform from which Jamison Gibson-Park scored Ireland&#8217;s third try to leave just five points between the sides at the break. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Then, seven minutes after the restart, Keenan scored Ireland&#8217;s fourth, elusively slipping between two Wallaby defenders after Garry Ringrose&#8217;s offload.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a see-saw game that went to the wire, the 30-year-old&#8217;s contributions did not go unnoticed. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Hugo Keenan was just so important, a proper game changer in that game,&#8221; Ireland and Ulster centre James Hume <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=j6N935Pa-mw&amp;t=1s\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">said on the Ireland Rugby Social., external<\/a>  <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It was 33-31 and you had a guy who made three last-ditch tackles and a great try as well, a great line for that try under the sticks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;You have players like that in your team who show up in big games like that and they can be the difference.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Characteristically solid in the air and sharp with ball in hand, Keenan shone at both ends of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-532947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532947","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=532947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}