Kidney hopeful two tight matches will prepare team for France

THE huge Irish flag draped across the touchline hoarding carried one word. BELIEVE.

The message was clear. If you feel deep down that you can do it, then you will. Former Munster great John Langford, an Aussie through and through, made that very point strongly in this newspaper on Saturday. But you have to wonder if the players were 100% sure in this respect.

After all, they were 11-3 behind after 17 minutes. Giving a team like Australia an eight point start isn’t the best of ideas. Assistant coach Declan Kidney doesn’t disagree and saw things like this: “The first 20 minutes were slow and they had a lot of ball that we needed and they got their points.