WALLABIES SKIPPER STEPHEN Moore admits his week in Dublin has been ‘busier than usual’ as he tried to catch up on his blood ties in Ireland.
However, by the time he finished the Captain’s Run at the Aviva Stadium today, he was tightly focused on derailing the land of his father, and mother.
The Australia hooker’s mother hails from Mayo, his father from Galway and he lived in the Tribe country until the age of five when the family traveled to the southern hemisphere.
“It’s a busier week than usual. There’s lots of people to catch up with. I tried to do a bit of that on Wednesday, so that was nice,” Moore said after the light session on Lansdowne Road this afternoon.
(I grew) up not seeing a lot of my cousins for most of my life, so it’s nice to be able to see them when I come to Dublin.
“With mum and dad it’s bit of an extra special week, dad will be in the crowd tomorrow so that’s something that will mean a lot to me.”
The niceties will most certainly cease come 17.30 tomorrow evening (RTE). Moore went about his media work dutifully, doing just enough yet wasting no more words than he needed to. He paid credit to his opposite number Rory Best on winning his 100th cap, he backed Paddy Jackson to pick up where Jonathan Sexton left off and said it was “disrespectful to Ireland” to mention their season-ending clash with England next week.
This is a Wallaby squad on a roll, with improving performances and wins over Wales, Scotland and France giving them every reason to be confident against an Irish side patching players up after a bruising loss to the All Blacks.
“We haven’t looked back on the last three weeks. We’ve tried to park those each time.
“This is a new challenge and a new opportunity for us to play the way we want to play and show our people and our supporters how we want to play and what it means to us to play for Australia.
“That’s really our focus this week and tomorrow’s the opportunity we get to show that.”
Moore: “We know it’s a huge challenge, we’re going to have to play our best game of the tour to win.”
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