AUSSIES EYEING OUR BIG SCALP...

BY MICHAEL SCULLY

ANDY FARRELL has warned his Ireland players that Australia are ready to “take a big scalp” at the Aviva Stadium.

After the disappointment of the winning display against Fiji, the Ireland boss (above) has brought back his big guns for the Lansdowne Road showdown.

Johnny Sexton returns as skipper while Jimmy O’brien and Stuart Mccloskey (below), who have impressed this autumn, get another opportunity to press their claim in the backline.

Farrell says his players didn’t have to be told how standards had dropped against Fiji.

“I don’t have to say much at all, they know,” he stated. “They know what we are after and what we want to achieve going into the game. They know that we are going to review it so it’s an honest procedure.

“Of course we’re doing OK but there’s a big scalp there for Australia at the weekend.

“If we want to stay where we are, we’ve got to get used to people trying to chase us down hard – and we’ve got to improve our performances in that regard.

“There’s a good majority of our players who have never played against them before and don’t quite know the mentality of the Australian team. For me, it’s never changed. I’ve played against Australia all my life and I know the mentality.”

Farrell admitted that he was “embarrassed” to be nominated as World Coach of the Year for the first time but paid a big tribute to Sexton and Josh van der Flier, nominated for World Player of the Year for the third and first time respectively.

He said: “We’re not surprised, are we? I don’t think anyone in the room is surprised that those two are picked, maybe one or two others could have as well for the type of year that they’ve had.

“They’d obviously be the first to say that is through their and the team’s performances of how the team’s shaped up through the season.

“Then you look at the individual performances of those two guys and they’ve stood up in every game. Their consistency has never dropped – you never want your team on a bad day to drop below 80% and, over the year, those guys have never ever been below 90. Some of them have been right up there on 95 and hopefully we’ll get to 99 this weekend.”

The 47-year-old believes the Lansdowne Road venue will be rocking from 8pm tomorrow night with two top quality sides going toe to toe. He smiled: “Five o’clock was pretty decent against South Africa – a couple more hours on top of that, hopefully people aren’t falling to sleep by then!”