Ireland 43 Romania 12: How to place this win in context? Ireland's nine previous victories over Romania averaged out at 43-11, which makes number 10 uncannily predictable.

Likewise, the bookies made it a 33-point game, and but for Ronan O'Gara's missing the last conversion, they would have been bang on the money in every sense.

Yet the scoreline, if anything, flattered Ireland's performance a tad. Admittedly, Romania's lack of ambition and their sometimes marshmallow defending deserved to be punished, but they were certainly unlucky not to score a try themselves.

Indeed, on the second of their three visits to the video adjudicator, Derek Bevan, courtesy of their muscular, close-in forward work after turning down three-pointers, they most probably did, but were denied as much by the inadequate camera angles as anything else.

It also required a fine covering tackle by David Humphreys to deny Catalin Fercu a wonderful try from the 19-year-old fullback's daring catch, kick, catch and go just past the hour at a time when there was only one team asking the questions.

At fault, admittedly, for the spillage that led to Tommy Bowe putting Andrew Trimble over for the 20-year-old's second try early in the second half, Fercu more than atoned with two pacy, try-saving tackles. Somebody, most probably in France, is bound to pick this fella up by the start of next season.

But save for one late flurry when they applied some width for the only time in the match, Romania were utterly, predictably one-dimensional; hammering away around the fringes through their forwards, mostly Petru Balan and Ovidiu Tonita, or else mauling it. Ireland had done their homework with Graham Steadman on the training ground and coped pretty well, defending physically around the fringes.

The scrum coped pretty well too, Marcus Horan even outmanoeuvring Balan, converted to the looseside, on one scrum so that Neil Best nailed Tonita off the base and Denis Leamy engineered the turnover penalty. Shane Byrne regularly hit Leo Cullen, Neil Best and Donncha O'Callaghan with his darts, though O'Sullivan admitted they could have got into the air a bit quicker at times.

Humphreys attacked space and offloaded cleverly, while again defying another capricious wind in Lansdowne Road with seven kicks from seven, showing that if you're good enough you're also young enough.

Geordan Murphy and Gordon D'Arcy also looked to probe continually, and this restorative shot-in-the-arm for Murphy was maybe no bad thing, although he still looks somewhat unhappy, constrained and careworn compared to the free spirit he is at Leicester.

D'Arcy is clearly still more effective as an outside centre than in the inside channels. Yet so much of Ireland's running game is lacking in spontaneity and creativity.

A rare example was Kieran Campbell's quick tap from inside his own 22 and burst to the halfway line. Alas, not alone did he catch most of the Romanians out, he also caught most of his team-mates, which perhaps tells us more. Campbell had a predictably tidy first Test start, but his delivery lacks Peter Stringer's snappiness in one movement. Again, more work for the skills coach.

Only once could you recall Ireland passing the ball through the hands of the backline to the wings, when Bowe was rightly denied a try for putting a foot into touch. Not for the first time watching Ireland or Leinster this season, the cost of the broken leg that has sidelined Denis Hickie was manifest, for no Irish winger has his natural pace and finishing ability.

Andrew Trimble's two tries were a fitting reflection of his ball-carrying strength in contact, pace and support runs. The outstanding player of the last two seasons' under-21 vintage, Trimble really has progressed to the senior ranks seamlessly, showing there are Irish players who exemplify the old maxim: if they're good enough, they're old enough.

Even so, Mark McCall and Allen Clarke, not to mention Ireland's skills coach Brian McLaughlin, will need to help this exceptional talent in improving his distribution. Sod's law also decrees, of course, that one of the few shafts of light in this grim autumn was the emergence of another number 13, and you wonder how Trimble can be accommodated in, say, the Six Nations.

At least four of Ireland's six tries could be described as on the pillowy side of softish, and you wondered if any of them would have happened against frontline opposition.

Neil Best's try was also the result of exploiting a gap between the statuesque Romanian props and although Horan's trademark take-and-give when Campbell probed the blindside underlined his ease on the ball for Johnny O'Connor's exultantly taken try, it was a feeble attempt at a covering tackle by Tonita.

Likewise, well though he took it, Murphy fended off the amateurish tackle of Csaba Gal with the kind of ease he'll be grateful to see repeated at any stage of his career.

Girvan Dempsey, surely Ireland's most frustrated player of the autumn after just 14 minutes or so on the pitch in three games, scored off a pass by Stringer, speeding up Ireland's continuity game, after Denis Leamy had done the spadework with a muscular turnover and big gallop off the ensuing tap.

He, too, has illuminated the gloom but all in all Ireland have their hazard lights on now. They look like a team in trouble.

SCORING SEQUENCE: 5 mins: Humphreys pen 3-0; 7: Mitu pen 3-3; 11: Mitu pen 3-6; 23: Trimble try, Humphreys con 10-6; 35: N Best try, Humphreys con 17-6 (half-time 17-6); 43: Trimble try, Humphreys con 24-6; 48: Mitu pen 24-9; 51: Mitu pen 24-12; 58: O'Connor try, Humphreys con 31-12; 68: Murphy try, Humphreys con con 38-12; 72: Dempsey try 43-12.

IRELAND: G Murphy (Leicester); S Horgan (Leinster), A Trimble (Ulster), G D'Arcy (Leinster), T Bowe (Ulster); D Humphreys (Ulster, capt), K Campbell (Ulster); M Horan (Munster), S Byrne (Saracens), S Best (Ulster); D O'Callaghan (Munster), L Cullen (Leicester); N Best (Ulster), J O'Connor (Wasps), D Leamy (Munster). Replacements: J Flannery (Munster) for Byrne, M O'Driscoll (Munster) for O'Callaghan (both 69 mins); P Stringer (Munster) for Campbell, R O'Gara (Munster) for Humphreys, G Dempsey (Leinster) for Murphy (all 70 mins), J Hayes (Munster) for Horan (77 mins). Unused: S Easterby (Llanelli).

ROMANIA: C Fercu (Arad); G Brezoianu (Dax), I Tofan (Metro Racing), V Maftei (Aurillac), I Teodorescu (University Cluj); I Dimofte (Arad), P Mitu (Tarbes); P Balan (Biarritz), M Tincu (Pau), P Toderasc (Brive); S Socol (Agen, capt), C Petre (Tarbes); F Corodeanu (Grenoble), A Manta (Pau), O Tonita (Perpignan). Replacements: C Gal (University Cluj) for Maftei (44 mins); C Mersoiu (Perigueux) for Cordeanu (59 mins); D Vlad (Steaua Bucharest) for Dimofte (56 mins); M Socaciu (Rovigo) for Toderasc (65 mins). Unused: C Popescu (Tarbes), C Ratiu (Dinamo Bucharest), L Sirbu (Metro Racing). Sinbinned: Mantra 34 mins).

Referee: Andrew Cole (Australia).