Beleaguered coach Joe Schmidt has been left admitting ruefully that the best Australian on the pitch in the Wallabies' latest calamitous defeat was playing in Irish green.
Mack Hansen, the maverick ex-Brumby made in Canberra and snapped up by his mum's home country, notched his hat-trick of tries within the first half-hour to kick-start Ireland's record 46-19 win over Australia in Dublin on Saturday.
Conceding six tries, making countless handling errors in the rain, sluggish in attack, sloppy at the line-out and flummoxed by an aerial bombardment, this was the most wretched night of a dismal tour, leaving Australia just one defeat away from a first winless European sojourn in 67 years.
