France 43 Ireland 21In truth it wasn't either the occasion or the Irish performance which Keith Wood's or Ireland's World Cup finale deserved. Everything, about the day from an Irish perspective was flat. The city, the ground and the display.

The noises emanating from the Irish camp all week had also conveyed an overt sense of satisfaction about the previous weekend's performance against Australia, and not enough self-reproach for failing to win a game they certainly could, and possibly should, have won.

The atmosphere around Melbourne yesterday hadn't been anything like the previous week.

The Melbourne sporting public had been stuffed to the gills by International Rules, the previous weekend's rugby double header and a week-long binge of racing.

The Australian Union and the Rugby World Cup have been rightly praised to date but were not helped by excessive pricing in non-rugby terrain come quarter-final weekend and only those with a parochial interest were tuned in. An attendance of 33,134 left almost 20,000 seats unoccupied. A shameful backdrop really.

Though mostly wearing green, the crowd could scarcely raise a shout, and by the half-hour mark the only ditty echoing around the enclosed Telstra Dome was Allez Les Bleus.

By then the score was 17-0 and the game was already up. By the time Ireland landed a few late punches, they were already on the canvas. Even allowing for France's brilliance, they were not truly extended, and won easing up long before the finish.

France's brilliant openside Olivier Magne admitted as much when looking ahead to the semi-finals: "If we play like we did today we will have a problem. All games are difficult but we got ahead of ourselves. We could see ourselves in the semi-finals, but next time, depending on which team we play, we will have to do better."

The sadly pointless and poignant second-half comeback, with old soldiers such as Wood and David Humphreys trying everything they could - and, of course, Brian O'Driscoll too - brought to mind Mick Doyle's famous assertion after another losing quarter-final in Australia in 1987 that "at least we won the second-half".

At least Eddie O'Sullivan didn't fly that flag.

"It's not much consolation winning the second half. I think the problem today was a very simple one. The way the game started was that for about 20 minutes France dominated us in every quarter," he admitted, adding that the long-range Christophe Dominici try conceded off a turnover "ripped the guts out of the team. What we needed was that last 30 minutes in the first 30 minutes. Unfortunately it wasn't to be."

After it was all over O'Sullivan and Wood called the entire Irish party into a huddle on the middle of the pitch. It was an emotional place to be, said O'Sullivan. Ninety minutes had seen their hopes of further progress dashed. They would be on a plane home the next day. Just like that.

"I was just trying to say to everybody that this team had given everything it had in its locker," said O'Sullivan. "We planned for this World Cup, we trained very hard for it. We did have some very good performances in the World Cup and though we were very devastated today I was trying to put some shape on that for them, and they had to be proud of what they had delivered at Rugby World Cup.

"I think it was a fantastic experience for us. I think we've learned from it - and though it's not supposed to be a learning curve you do learn from it all the time - and I think they should be proud of what they did. I think the people at home will be proud of them watching on. Today the odyssey is over, that's a big shock to everybody and trying to put a shape on that was what that was about."

The Irish coach, not surprisingly, rejected any notion that he had made the wrong call in picking Ronan O'Gara ahead of David Humphreys when asked by a French journalist afterwards.

"No, not really. O'Gara got a knock on the head early in the game. Very unfortunate. A complete accident. He slipped and caught his head on a French player's knee, and he was pretty shook, but I think he came out of it well and got his head together."

"I think David came off the bench, as he can, and read the game very well. We had a bit of a chat on the radio before he went on and I told him what I wanted him to do. But it's happened the other way around as well," said O'Sullivan.

"It's easy to say when you make a substitution, maybe you should have started him but you changed your shirt coming to work today but it didn't mean you had the wrong shirt on coming to work yesterday."

O'Sullivan is contracted to take Ireland to the 2007 World Cup in France and looking to the future he maintained: "I think we've built a pretty good squad. We've had a good run in terms of winning games and lost two in a row now in the World Cup, and I suppose this is where the real business is. But I think we're going forward. We have to look down the track. We've some players who might be coming to the end and there's players back home who have to come in, but in the bigger picture I think Irish rugby is going in the right direction.

"I suppose if you lose a game like today people might well ask questions about it, but we're playing one of the powerhouses of world rugby in France.

"We're still not as good as France. I think we have the capabilities and on certain days if we get things right we can turn them over, but I don't think it was really on today."

In reflecting on his last game of rugby, Wood commented: "We went out with the right frame of mind, I think we seemed to be in the right place, we just didn't start well.

"France started on fire. We needed to get scores early doors but we didn't even get into their half. They pressurised us at every play to an extent we haven't seen at this World Cup.

"We were in the game for a time on the scoreboard but to be brutally frank we were hanging on for a lot of it. We were trying, but they seemed to be in behind us too often.

"I don't think they scorned a chance," he said in extolling the all-round discipline of Bernard Laporte's team, "but I don't think we played to our full potential in the first half. Not that I want to take anything away from France.

"If they play like that over the next two games for 80 minutes it will be very interesting.

"But I think there's something for a while. We've the raw material to build on and target the next World Cup, and then it becomes more than just a vague possibility."

Alas, Ireland are already down at least one world-class player.