Durable Dempsey determined to gain revenge on Aussies

GIRVAN DEMPSEY is one of the great rugby survivors, and he hopes to prove it against Australia at the Subiaco Oval on Saturday.

Dempsey returns to win his 66th Ireland cap, and he can proudly boast one of only two survivors from the squad that toured Australia in 1999.

The other is Jeremy Staunton, who fills one of the seven places on the bench, but Dempsey has, in the intervening years, become a long-serving international, while Staunton’s career has been stop-start. More stop than start.

Five Irish players in Saturday’s team have amassed more than 60 caps each; Dempsey is third highest in that list, yet it’s not the number of appearances but the fact that he has been restored as number one full back ahead of Geordan Murphy that pleases him most.

Dempsey has come through the hard way; there were no windows of opportunity for him as a youngster, no overseas schools tours, no U19 or under World Cups, but in his tenure as Ireland full-back, he has been known as “Mr Dependable”, with a penchant for doing more than his primary duties. The 14 tries he has scored is testimony to that.

He looks back fondly on that first tour.

“I had only played a couple of internationals, but I was fortunate to have good leaders around me, guys like David Humphreys, Kevin Maggs and, of course, Keith Wood.”

He recalls the game of 1999 when Australia won a hard fought test at Subiaco, 22-16.

“We went there with a positive attitude, with the view that we could win it. We nearly did; in fact we should have won, but the game was settled because we probably lacked that element of experience, and the fact that we hadn’t been playing the big sides often enough was a factor. There was probably a doubt in the back of our minds even when we were in there with a shout,” he said.

At the start of this tour, Dempsey didn’t hold out much hope of getting into the starting team. “Geordan was there, and he had played very well. The best I could have hoped for was being sprung off the bench at some stage of either or both games.”

That happened in the two matches against the All Blacks, but nothing thrills him more than when hearing his name called out first from the team sheet. He admits it was a bit of a surprise, saying: “For me, it’s brilliant, but when you’re part of such a close-knit squad, as we are, then you do feel sorry for the other person involved.

Geordan is a good mate of mine, he’s a world-class player, and I suppose the conditions last week were not good for a full-back. Still, it’s an opportunity for me and I have to try and grab it.

“From Ireland’s perspective, it’s still a good situation that you can have two experienced players going for the same position. That’s good for teams at any level, and it’s particularly good for an international side. He puts pressure on me, I put pressure on him; that’s the way it goes, and it’s good that neither of us can afford to get into the comfort zone.”

Dempsey believes Ireland can win on Saturday.

“I think that old mentality is gone; this Ireland side has winning as part of our ethos, we know all about being there, and we’ve done it before: I think, despite the results against the All Blacks, we stood up, we weren’t afraid of them and we could easily have won. It came down to not executing our chances on a couple of occasions rather than being intimidated by playing them.”

Dempsey bemoans the fact that Ireland coughed up scores early in both games, but he believes the character of the side then shone through.

“The key thing is not to concede a soft score to Australia, but even if that happens we know we can come back to win. That’s not an issue with this team; if we have the ball, we can score, and we can win,” he said.

He has studied videos of Australia’s recent internationals against England.

“I was surprised the way England played; they seemed to be a group of individuals rather than a team; they didn’t play off one another as you would have expected.

“That said, Australia played very well; they hit the ground running and played some superb rugby that we certainly have taken note of.”

But Dempsey is equally confident that Ireland can find gaps and create scoring opportunities against the Wallabies. “The games against England were such that they actually left openings, and we would hope to exploit that if it happens on Saturday. It’s a very similar side to the one that toured Europe in November, and yet they have a depth of experience that they didn’t have then.

“Still, even though this is the last game of the season, we’re all feeling very fresh, we’re quite confident because the mood in the camp is absolutely brilliant. Even though we lost to New Zealand, there has been absolutely no talk of throwing in the towel.

“When we lost the first game, it was a question of getting on with the second; now we want to get on with the third and finish off the season on a high. I have no doubt about our ability to do so,” he said.