1. Clean sweep

THERE WILL BE some very sore bodies around the Ireland camp this evening, but each one can look at a job well done this series.

For the first time in eight years, Ireland have gone on a winning streak through November and seeing off the challenges of South Africa and Australia will only further boost confidence within Joe Schmidt’s side and allow them to believe they are currently the third best team in the world. How they use that knowledge will be another matter.

2. Start as you mean to go on

Under Schmidt Ireland have made it their business to lay solid early platforms and follow that up by building scores in the second half of games.

In stand-out Tests, though, they go after opponents with everything in the first quarter and that’s what we seen again against Australia.

Source: James Crombie/INPHO

Even before Simon Zebo collected Jonathan Sexton’s cross-field kick, the winger was laying down a marker by laying a big hit on Tevita Kuridrani. That was followed up by big contributions from Rhys Ruddock and Peter O’Mahony to help Ireland build a 17-point lead after just 16 minutes.

3. They pulled us back in

The deficit looked insurmountable, but little by little the intensity began to slightly within green ranks and small the small drop-offs in focus and accuracy invited the Wallabies to make a game of it.

Zebo, having set the early tone, was guilty of trying to force an offload that resulted in Nick Phipps’ try that breathed life in to the visitors. The Corkman should also have put away another kick when given the chance, but slammed it into the hands of Henry Speight. This is not to blame Zebo for the concession of the third try as there were a number of phases that followed (and he more than made up for his errors with a try-saving tackle in the second half), but the delayed decision-making was symptomatic of Ireland’s second quarter.