O'Driscoll wants to play with width

Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll hopes his side can express themselves against Australia.

Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll plans to show that his team-mates have more to offer than forward grunt and kicking skills in Saturday's Test against Australia.

The Irish battled some atrocious weather during their 21-11 loss to New Zealand in Wellington at the weekend, but they will face completely different conditions when they tackle the Wallabies.

The roof of Melbourne's Telstra Dome will be closed which should ensure some free-flowing rugby after last Saturday's sodden toil, when tactical kicking and ball retention by the pack was the order of the day.

And O'Driscoll is raring for the match to kick-off so he can finally showcase his renowned talent to the full.

“It's nice to think that it will be a dry night and we will get the chance to express ourselves,” he said.

“From a backs point of view, you want to express yourself, run with the ball, take people on and get offloads.

“That's the way I was brought up, to play the game and enjoy the game, as I don't like having to chase kicks all day.

“I want to be able to do the best parts of my game. Take people on and put people into space. It is nice to think that we will get the opportunity to do that on the weekend.”

Ireland could only manage one try against New Zealand but O'Driscoll believes his back-line has enough quality in it to create plenty of try-scoring opportunities against the Wallabies.

“The conditions we had last week didn't favour either backline and it was very much a forward-orientated game and a fly-half kicking game,” O'Driscoll said.

“That can be frustrating and I would like to think that this weekend, if we get some kind of quality ball, that we have plenty of guys within the team that are capable of doing special things with the ball and creating something out of nothing.

“When you have those guys in your team then you have a chance of scoring points and winning games, and it's just a matter of making sure players click and we are on the same wavelength for the period of 80 minutes.”

Ireland's lone try against the All Blacks came from inside centre Paddy Wallace, who has retained the number twelve jersey for the clash against the Australians.

Wallace has been given a chance by selectors to consolidate his spot in the starting XV and O'Driscoll believes the 28-year-old will shine.

“I know that in Test rugby, the cream does rise to the top, and he is that sort of player that is capable of doing very special things and creating gaps for people,” O'Driscoll said.

“He hasn't had a huge amount of chances at international level and maybe things haven't gone as brilliantly as they might have for him.

“But we will see a very different Paddy Wallace this weekend.”