Imbued by their bench, Ireland dig deep to make perfectly imperfect start in Sydney

04 Jul 2026, 13:00 by Gavan Casey · The42

THERE IS OCCASIONALLY a moment in a rugby game which convinces you that one team are going to win, even in a squeaker.

On 71 minutes of this thrilling Test match in Sydney, Australia’s replacement goal-kicker, Ben Donaldson, pulled wide left a penalty shot at goal that would have extended Australia’s lead to two scores.

The TV broadcast in Sydney pursued the Wallaby’s reaction to his missed kick and, by the time they cut back to the action, Ciarán Frawley was storming out of his own 22′ to set up an Irish counter-attack.

Frawley, incidentally playing in the city of his birth, exemplified the excellent impact made by Ireland’s bench in this 33-31 success to open their Nations Championship campaign. His decision to run back Donaldson’s kick from his own in-goal area, which emblematised a thrilling Test match between two closely matched sides, briefly caught the hosts on the hop.

And Frawley’s counter-attack didn’t just add style points, either. It ultimately yielded a period of Irish pressure from which Andy Farrell side scored their winning points, Tom Clarkson crossing off second phase from a tap penalty and Sam Prendergast holding his nerve from the tee as several Aussies charged towards him from the line.

This was, in many ways, the perfect start to Ireland’s Nations Championship campaign: a bonus-point victory in the southern hemisphere in a game that they easily could have — and arguably should have — lost.

Farrell will be thrilled that his side mustered the requisite guts and grit to get it won, even if it took another missed long-range effort on goal by Donaldson at the end, and he’ll be equally furious with elements of Ireland’s play.

That they conceded 11 linebreaks and five tries, even to a precise Wallabies backline replete with dynamic athletes, will be cause for some bollockings after they head 160 kilometres up the road to Newcastle, where they’ll face Japan next week.

Ireland’s defence looked badly out of sync at times and Simon Easterby has a job on his hands to conjoin it once more ahead of the visit to Eden Park to face the All Blacks in a fortnight’s time.

It improved in the second half at Allianz Stadium, mind, and the introduction of Tadhg Beirne — a key communicator as well as a fundamentally great defender — surely played a role in that.

Beirne’s introduction on 52 minutes immediately shored up Ireland’s lineout, also, where the Wallabies were beginning to get on top of James Ryan, and it increasingly became a weapon in the final quarter.

Ireland’s strongest set piece, however, might be the tap penalty, which has for several years been an area of strength for Leinster whose forwards make up the bulk of the Irish pack.

It produced two scores against the Wallabies, Tom Clarkson’s late match-leveller preceded by a first-half strike by Josh van der Flier.

Indeed, late on, with Ireland down 31-26, replacement captain Beirne asked his teammates if they should take a five-metre lineout after repeated Australian infringements had earned Tate McDermott a yellow card. They instead tapped and went, with Clarkson crashing over from second phase after an excellent initial incursion by Rónan Kelleher, who has become adept at lowering his body height to such an extent that it’s almost impossible to stop him gaining two to three metres at least off the initial carry.

Beirne, Kelleher and Clarkson were all bench players, of course, and while the Australians’ replacement front row decisively won the scrum battle, Ireland’s forward substitutes won the war.

None more so than Ulster’s Nick Timoney, whose impact on Test matches is becoming routinely profound. The 30-year-old back row is now a key option for Farrell and might even be in the frame to start against the All Blacks, but his couple of line-breaks off the bench against the Wallabies got Ireland motoring.

To win a Test match in Australia without captain Caelan Doris, without a seasoned loosehead, without Jack Crowley, without late withdrawal Robert Baloucoune, and without James Lowe if he still qualifies as a ‘without’, will have thrilled Farrell.

The absence of several frontline options on the wing was pronounced. This particular Jamie Osborne experiment was not quite the same resounding success as his Test debut at fullback in South Africa two summers ago. Osborne didn’t have a bad game — he’s just not James Lowe, actually, despite possessing some similar traits. Jimmy O’Brien, too, was diligent without influencing the game to a meaningful degree.

Ireland found little success on the edges in either attack or defence, really, and without Baloucoune or Tommy O’Brien, they were severely lacking in pace.