Mcmanus: We came up short

MONAGHAN’S Conor Mcmanus will leave Australia as Ireland’s leading scorer for the fourth consecutive IRS series but he’s in no mood to celebrate.

Mcmanus, whose 37-points went a long way towards keeping Ireland competitive in Australia’s clean sweep of both Test matches, admitted the hosts outclassed Ireland in the third quarter.

He said: “We came here fairly confident we could overcome the 10-point deficit from the first Test in Adelaide.

“We were hopeful of coming out and having a bid third quarter but we couldn’t finish the job off.”