Here's a message on the matches in Australia last weekend from our roving reporter, Kerrill Thornhill

Greetings from Melbourne in Australia, Irish rugby
fever has taken over over here for the last few weeks,
with thousands of Irish people swamping Adelaide for
the Argentina match last weekend and then moving on to
Melbourne for the match against Australia, brilliant
craic in Adelaide and the fans were in great voice,
they also managed to drink a lot of the pubs in
Adelaide dry and we won a very close match so the
celebrations went on all week, with thousands making
the road trip over to Melbourne along the coast road
of this very big and beautiful country. Following the
famous great ocean road which was built by returning
Australian soldiers from the first world war.
Melbourne was buzzing ahead of the Ireland-Australia
game and nobody was disappointed as the game was
fantastic and the atmosphere was electric, the Irish
fans kept the noise levels high and sang for the whole
match without much opposition from the huskies,
however it wasn't enough and Ireland were very unlucky
not too win and went down by a single point. No one
was too devastated though as we now play France next
weekend in Melbourne and get to spend a further week
in the area. Melbourne is a very young and lively
city, a lot of the Irish team were out in the casino
mingling with the fans till the small hours, they got
a great reception and there were a lot of hoarse
throats and sore heads this morning.
Forgot to mention the compromise rules game on Friday
which was played in the Melbourne cricket ground, also
an epic encounter, the Irish won the match but were
very disappointed not to win the series against a
professional and very committed Australian team.
Ciaran McManus from Tubber had a very good game and
the team did Ireland proud and weren't intimidated by
the more physical Australians. Next up in Melbourne
is the famous Melbourne gold cup race meeting on
Tuesday which is likely to be a great day too. Bring
on the French next Sunday.