'We get to really test ourselves against the best' - Foley eager to challenge 'benchmark' Ireland 

The Aussies, as Foley admits, have not lived up to expectations on a tour where they have pipped the Scots but been pipped in turn by France and Italy. The latter of those losses, in Florence, happened to a second-string Aussie side but it was no outlier.

WARY: Bernard Foley. ©INPHO/Ben Brady

If Test rugby hasn’t quite been turned upside down then it has at least been tilted no end on its axis with the chasm in standards between the two hemispheres diluting to a point where the naked eye can't always spot a dividing line.

The World Cup remains in thrall to the south of course, but their hold on the Webb Ellis will likely never be as firm as 2015 when New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina provided the four semi-finalists.