No looking back, insists Kearney

Rob Kearney will not be carrying any baggage from his personal Lions disappointments when he finally gets to face Australia on Saturday.

Ireland play the Wallabies at the Aviva Stadium four months on from the British & Irish Lions Test series victory over them Down Under. Kearney was a part of Warren Gatland’s squad but was a victim of circumstance having travelled to Australia with a hamstring injury sustained before Leinster’s RaboDirect Pro12 final against Ulster on May 25 and by the time he had recovered to face the Waratahs in game five of the 10-match tour, the full-back had effectively been marginalised by the great form of his Wales counterpart Leigh Halfpenny, the eventual player of the series.

Yet, having missed out on all three Lions Tests, Kearney will head into Ireland’s meeting with the Wallabies without a thought of missed opportunities or feeling the need to prove a point.

“I think it’s always a little bit of a dangerous one if you look to the past and try and get into your head, ‘I have to go out here and try and do something extra special to prove to the world why I should have been involved in the summer Tests’,” Kearney said.

“Of course there is a little bit of that and you are coming up against the team who you felt you maybe could have done a good job against this summer, but certainly what happened on the Lions during the summer won’t be anywhere near my psyche.”

In any case, much has changed in the Australian camp since that 2-1 series defeat was sealed with a 41-16 hammering by the Lions at ANZ Stadium, Sydney.

The Wallabies are under new management with head coach Robbie Deans ousted after eight years in the job, replaced ahead of the Rugby Championship by Queensland Reds boss Ewen McKenzie.

Results have been poor, so far, with Australia losing home and away to both South Africa and New Zealand and a fortnight ago to England at Twickenham, McKenzie’s only victories coming twice against Argentina and last weekend over Italy in Turin.

Yet Kearney has witnessed plenty of progression from the Wallabies with Quade Cooper restored by his former Reds coach to the gold No.10 jersey having previously broken his bridges with Deans.

“I think they’ve changed a huge amount,” Kearney said. “I thought during the Lions tour they were pretty poor. They’ve got a lot of new players in, they’ve got some fresh faces and just the style of their play is very different, too; there seems to be a little bit more direction. They know where they’re going. I think during that summer they were a little bit guilty of not really having a clue where they were going next and what they were doing at that moment in time. They do have a lot more direction.”

Kearney faced some raw talent in Samoa last Saturday as Ireland opened the Guinness Series with a 40-9 victory in Joe Schmidt’s first game in charge, the full-back supplying a pass to his younger brother Dave, for one of two tries on his Test debut. They were moments that had been long awaited in the Kearney family with the Leinster wing having come close to his first appearance against Wales in the 2012 Six Nations, only to be an unused substitute and his big brother was elated to have been alongside him.

“It was awesome. I was delighted for him. Obviously, what happened 18 months ago with him coming so close for it and having to wait longer than we all would have liked – I was really happy for him, he made a great impact and it’s always nice to get a couple of tries.

“Yeah, (the pass) was nice. It’s probably one of those moments that maybe down the line, in time, we’ll appreciate it more. Often, when you’re in the moment, and you’ve got a game in seven days it is difficult sometimes to get caught up in it, but there’s no doubt it was a special moment to give him the pass for his first international try on debut.”