‘We Know Joe Will Have A Plan’ – Goodman On Ireland v Australia

Ireland Men’s assistant coach Andrew Goodman spoke to the media today about the squad ahead of Saturday’s clash with Australia, the mood in camp, and of course facing an old friend in Joe Schmidt.

Goodman confirmed that Mack Hansen was back in camp and in good form, saying:

Yeah, first of all, it’s great to have Mack back amongst the squad. He’s always a great man to bring the energy up and I always look forward to having him in.

“He took a full part in training today and was running around well, Stu (McCloskey) the same. And then Josh and ‘Ringer’ (Garry Ringrose) are going through their process, return-to-play, so they took part in parts of training today. They are all pushing for the weekend.”

Looking forward to the Quilter Nations Series match against the Wallabies, he added: “We just know that Australia will have a great plan coming into the weekend.

“We know he has a great mind, this will be a big game for Joe coming back to Dublin, it always is. It was a competitive, tough affair last year and we expect no different this year.

“Look, as I said, as a coaching group we’ve all had experience with Joe, we’ve all got huge amounts of respect for him and we know that the team, especially after what happened in Italy and the disappointment there, they’ll be coming with a point to prove.”