Match News and Current Form
Ireland haven’t been anywhere near their potential best against elite rugby nations this year. The scoreline from last week’s 41-17 win over Eddie Jones’ Japan might suggest otherwise, but it was far from a comfortable victory given their sluggish first half in which they struggled to a 17-10 half-time lead. Single-digit wins against England, Wales and Italy in this year’s Six Nations all failed to meet expectations, as did a 26-13 loss to the All Blacks two starts back, so the Irish need a strong win over Australia here and admirable showing against world champions South Africa to get back on the right track ahead of next year’s Six Nations.
Canberra-born Mack Hansen comes into the Ireland side as one of many rotations made, replacing Jamie Osborne at 15 for his first start since the Six Nations. James Lowe slots into the back three, whilst Stuart McCloskey and Robbie Henshaw are the starting centres. Jack Conan returns to eight and Paddy McCarthy starts the front row, having been elevated from the bench.
Australia’s Wallabies keep finding new ways to disappoint their supporters and last weekend was no exception. Joe Schmidt’s side selected to play against Italy was not at full strength as he prioritised workload management to get the squad through a gruelling five-week tour, and paid the ultimate price with his team losing to the Azzurri for a second consecutive time. It has almost certainly cost them a top-six ranking at the end of the month and therefore a Band 1 seeding for December’s 2027 Rugby World Cup draw, which would mean they end up in a pool with at least one higher ranked team. Getting back to sixth by the end of this weekend will require them to defeat Ireland by 15+ points and for Scotland to beat Argentina, which appears a long shot for a Wallabies side that scored fewer than 20 points in all three games this window.
Australia head coach Joe Schmidt batted away assessments that he disrespected the Italians last week with a slightly weaker than usual team selection, pointing towards the importance of building depth and strength in a squad by picking a variety of players and backing them to deliver. He has made six changes to his starting XV for this fixture, bringing back John Eales Medallist Len Ikitau and recalling flyhalf James O’Connor from a holiday in Morocco. Filipo Daugunu returns to the wing and Max Jorgensen to fullback despite some illness threatening to rule him out.
Head-to-Head History
Australia leads the all-time H2H 22-15 thanks to a period of domination from the 1980s through the 2000s. Ireland won six of the seven games to take place since 2014, but all seven matches were decided by a single digit margin.
Hot Stats and Streaks
Ireland have a 7-1 record as betting favourites in 2025.
The second half was the highest scoring half in two-thirds of Ireland’s games this year.
Two-thirds of Australia’s last 15 games finished under the total points handicap.
Australia lost 55% of their last 22 matches in which they scored the first try.
Key Players to Watch and Missing Players
Irish centre Tommy O’Brien is one of their leading try scoring threats, having found the line in three of their last four internationals. Wallabies fullback Max Jorgensen may have fond memories of the previous head-to-head as the team’s only try scorer from that day.
Jamie Osborne, Josh van der Flier, Joe McCarthy and Garry Ringrose are the most notable absences for Ireland. Australia are without star lock Will Skelton for the rest of the tour.
Betting Analysis
Ireland have a 5-1 record this year when scoring the first try, and Australia 1-5 when conceding the first, so you could add some value to Ireland’s win odds by backing them to score the first try and win.