While you have to go back to the summer of 2018 for the last meeting of Ireland and the Wallabies, the four-and-a-half year gap between games would have been cut in two if not for Covid-19.
Andy Farrell had been set to travel Down Under in the summer of 2020 for what would have been his first tour since becoming head coach, but the pandemic saw to it that the two-Test series was scrapped.
Jamison Gibson-Park is now the established first-choice scrum-half for Ireland, but it's unlikely he'd even have been in the squad had that tour gone ahead as planned.
Irish-qualified since 2019, the Kiwi seemed to be well down the pecking order of scrum-halves at the time. Firmly second-choice at Leinster behind Luke McGrath, his provincial team-mate had been part of the Ireland squad in the opening rounds of the Six Nations, but it was Conor Murray who started all three of those games, supplemented by Ulster's John Cooney off the bench.
Since the pandemic hiatus, Ireland's depth chart at 9 has changed dramatically.
While Cooney and McGrath have both been involved in Irish squads, neither have been able to earn a cap since 2020, with Cooney now reportedly being eyed-up by Scotland coach Gregor Townsend next year, when he hits the three-year stand-down period to switch international allegiance.
At 28, Gibson-Park was relatively old for a Test debutant when he first pulled on the green jersey for Ireland against Italy in October 2020, but he's set to win his 23rd cap this evening against Australia as a key member of the world's number one ranked side.
And he admits the Covid-enforced break of 2020 gave him cause for reflection on where his career was headed.
"I suppose so, just like whether I was going to give it a crack or not," he says.
"It's not that I was faffing around, but I was playing second fiddle at Leinster. I did start a few games but Lukey [McGrath] was number one, and that was pretty obvious. I got a chance I suppose coming back after Covid.
"I wouldn't say a crossroads but I think mentally I was getting a bit older, and you try and figure out what you want to do. That was a pretty important period for me."
His progression to first-choice with Ireland wasn't instant either. His first two caps came off the bench, while for a lot of those opening 10 caps he was playing in an Irish side who were struggling to stitch the pieces of their gameplan together.
It wasn't until this time last year, and the wins against Japan, New Zealand and Argentina that Ireland found their flow, and by then Leinster scrum-half was at the heart of it, with his pace and energy an ideal compliment to the gameplan.
"That's the way the coach wants to go. I wouldn’t have got a look in under Joe Schmidt," he laughs.
"But yeah, that’s the way it goes. It suits my style, just happy to be here to be honest.
"We [he and Farrell] have a pretty good working relationship, if you want to put it that way. Obviously I have a lot of respect for Faz and what he's done in the coaching setup.
"He’s had a lot of faith in me, and that’s probably filled myself with a bit of confidence, having him stick by me and not just him, the other coaches as well.
"Everyone has been pretty amazing over the last couple of years and then obviously I’ve had really good coaches at Leinster as well, along with top class players, it makes it a pretty good environment to try and get better in," he added.
The 30-year-old is yet to actually feature for Leinster this season, a hamstring injury ruling him out of the opening block of URC games.
However, he hasn't shown any signs of rust since returning, thrown in after 35 minutes against South Africa due to Conor Murray's groin injury, and starting again last week. The hamstring has come through fine so far, even if he admits to a few anxious thoughts during his first few full-on sprints.
He's looked a little different in recent weeks too, sporting a black scrumcap to protect some stitches he needed after a cut against the Springboks, although he's hoping to ditch the headgear this evening against the Wallabies.
After tonight, there will be just eight games to go until the World Cup in France next year, with a Six Nations and three warm-up matches all that's separating them from the campaign that will largely define their last four years.
And while not taking their eyes off the short-term, Gibson Park says the World Cup is constantly in their thoughts.
"It's all about the World Cup. Growing up, it’s all you want to do to get to that, and those are the dreams you have at a World Cup, to visualise yourself at a World Cup. It’s obviously a long way off at this stage, but exciting times."
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