AUSTRALIAN coach Mick Malthouse says his players let down goalkeeper Nathan Bock last week and will have to lend more support to Michael Firrito in this week’s deciding match against Ireland.

Firrito will take Bock’s place in goals this week and Malthouse said he would receive more support from the defenders.

“We’re not disguising the fact that the Irish will attack him and he knows that, his teammates know that. He’s not a one-man band, he’s got to get support and I reckon we let our goalkeeper down last week,” Malthouse said.

“Mainly because it was a new bloke in the box, the players around him are relatively new and feeling their way. As a consequence they won the game because they scored better.”

Malthouse said the change was not a response to Bock’s performance in goals last week, but that the match committee had identified a better role for the Crow defender.

“It’s no demotion. It’s simply a difficult game. We don’t have goalkeepers (in the AFL) and we are trying now to establish a goalkeeper,” he said.

“It’s up to us to establish who is going to be best suited. Michael may well establish himself for the next five or six games.

“Nathan is still part of the team and is treating it as such. It is no less a role. He’s going to be playing on a very good footballer and knows he has to play the role.”

While many are tipping the Australian team to improve rapidly in the deciding match, Malthouse said it was important to realise that the Irish side will also be a lot stronger.

“Everyone naturally assumes we’re going to have massive improvement and therefore we’re going to win the game,” he said.

“We will improve but I know that six young Irish players came over late because they were playing. There’s no prediction that we are going to be substantially better than the Irish because that won’t be the case. It is going to be another hard-fought game.”

Malthouse said the Irish side had more of a sense of how to score, making life more difficult for Bock than the Australians did for opposing keeper David Gallagher.

“We effectively made their goalkeeper the best on ground last week because you can’t keep kicking it like we did to their goalkeeper,” he said.

“We’ve got to come up with different strategies and the players have to acknowledge them and act on them.”

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The 2008 Toyota International Rules Series: Australia v Ireland

Second Test – MCG, Melbourne, Friday October 31

Tickets on sale now at ticketmaster.com.au, by calling 1300 136 122 or at a Ticketmaster outlet.