Plenty to chew over as Australia get fangs into Irish

Master Schmidt’s second day in big school and it will not prove edifying. A host of lessons await, among them ones in maths, logic and biology.

Logic because common sense says that a team just finishing their season, like Australia, will be more hardened than a team just starting theirs, like Ireland, with Conor O’Shea rightly pooh-poohing Tom McGurk’s hopeful suggestion that Australia might be tired. Professionals, he emphasises, don’t get tired.

Maths because two and two, of the kind outlined just there now, makes four. And biology because the conversation soon takes a hand brake turn into the area of bodily fluids and suchlike. Yes, really.