Conor McManus is convinced Ireland can overturn their 10-point deficit in next Saturday's International Rules series decider in Perth.

The vice-captain led Ireland's scoring charge with seven overs and four behinds in this morning's first Test at the Adelaide Oval, but his efforts were all in vain as a dominant third quarter powered Australia to a 63-53 victory.

"We're very much still in the game," McManus said in an interview with RTE's Marty Morrissey afterwards.

"There's 10 points in it and we hope to make a lot of improvements over the next week.

"It's a big lead but on the flip side of that it's only three overs. Three points and it's back to a one-point game so that's the way we have to look at it.

"We have to improve, we've a lot of things to work on - just basic simple skills of our game that we probably didn't execute well enough. We've that to work on during the week. If we can sharpen up on that I fully believe we can claw that back."

The Test was played in 31 degrees heat, but the Monaghan attacker wasn't using it as an excuse for the visitors' shortcomings.

"I think if you ask any of our lads there's more in the tank there. We've more to give and it's going to be maybe a wee bit warmer down in Perth next week but we've got this under out belts.

"We can store this, put it in the tank and recover as well as we can over the next few days and get back to work on Tuesday or Wednesday in training," he added.

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