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.