Mack Hansen says he was extra determined to impress against Australia after missing out on the opening autumn Tests.
The Canberra-born Connacht player, making his first Test start at full-back, helped himself to a hat-trick of tries inside the opening 28 minutes as Ireland ran out 46-19 winners.
The 27-year-old had recovered from a foot injury suffered on club duty last month but hit the ground running and is now a genuine contender for the 15 shirt when regular starter Hugo Keenan returns from a hip issue around the New Year.
"Look, I've had a pretty bang average run with injuries really," Hansen, who also missed the British and Irish Lions Tests through injury," told RTÉ Sport.
"I missed being in this team, I know there's a lot of chat about me not necessarily being born here and I didn't grow up here, but I love this team and this feels like home.
"Any time I get to play for Ireland it's a privilege, if you don't put in a performance you might not get that privilege again.
"My whole thing this week was to go out and do what I can do."
It's a Hansen hat-trick of tries as the return of the Mack pays off for Ireland again #IREvAUS
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On his three tries, he said: "That's the pleasure of playing in this team, I literally had to grab the ball and run over the line. I didn't have to do much.
"Everybody else is doing their job for me, making it easy for me. We pride ourselves on making each other look good and the boys did that for me.
"It feels unbelievable, any opportunity to play at the Aviva in front of these fans is an absolute privilege and to do it in style like we did, it's good things going into the Springboks."
Captain Caelan Doris scores Ireland's fourth try against Australia #IREvAUS
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Captain Caelan Doris, who started at seven but switched to number eight for the last half hour, was quick to praise the hat-trick hero.
"He's been class all week, it's challenging coming in having not been in the last few weeks, straight into the No 15 jersey which is unfamiliar," said the Leinster forward, who scored Ireland's fourth try.
"But he was class, you saw three tries - he took the ball nicely, delighted for him."
After lineout struggles against New Zealand and Japan, the unit returned a 100% success rate.
"I know there's been a lot of chat about it the last few weeks, but we've massive faith in the people behind it and we felt it was a matter of time before it clicked," added Doris.
"Next week, the South African lineout is another beast altogether so it's going to need to improve again."
He added: "Happy with the fast start, they showed their quality bouncing back in that second quarter, but how we finished off there was very pleasing.
"You could see the joy in how we played, the support was unbelievable.
"We watched the football on Thursday night [Ireland's 2-0 win over Portugal] and we saw how they played with so much passion and got the crowd involved and we wanted to bring a bit of that today and we got some of it there."
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