Gatland's men have solid base to build on

As postcards home go, this tour opener had a fairly simple little message: "The lads say `hi' to the knockers". They weren't shouting from the rooftops, but, in the privacy of the winners' dressingroom at the Boland Stadium on Saturday, Paddy Johns brought the entire management and squad together for a hearty rendition of Ireland's Call.

Not long after, Johns eased himself onto a small seat in a makeshift press conference room along the corridor from the dressingrooms. Reverting to type - that is, the softly spoken, almost shy dentist that you couldn't possibly think plays in the coalface of international rugby - he whispered: "It's a win anyway, it's a win."

Johns was (almost) the first to admit that mistakes had been made. "I was pleased with parts of the game and I was proud of the effort the lads put in. Some of them hadn't played for four weeks. We made a few mistakes, which you're going to do. We're just going to try to amend those mistakes."

In fact, he was the second. Beside him, Warren Gatland was in vintage form. Compared to the backslappers' ball outside, in typically Kiwi mode, Gatland's first words were: "It was okay, yeah." The Irish coach added: "There's lots of room for improvement. We made a lot of mistakes, but hopefully it will give us a bit of confidence for the rest of the tour."

That was what this was all about. None of the home media had given Ireland a prayer, despite the warnings of Boland coach Mike Bayly, and the Cape Town Argus had intimated that a similar outcome to Wales' tour opener in 1995, a 47-6 defeat to South Eastern Transvaal (now Mpumalanga), was on the cards.

Back in Ireland, there had also been misgivings about the tour even taking place. For it to be any way successful, this game had to be won. Now they've something tangible to build on, and were the midweek dirt-trackers (though it's a bit premature to establish such demarcation lines) to beat South West on Wednesday, then the nucleus of this team can re-assemble to have a fair old tilt at Western Province on Saturday, which can at least now be described as winnable. It was a largely good performance, though not without its flaws. Unusually, there wasn't the solid, set-piece platform which has been the hallmark of Gatland's Irish team. Six line-outs were lost on the Irish throw; perhaps Allen Clarke was suffering from the kick in the back he received after about 20 minutes. The scrum was occasionally in trouble and conceded a pushover try soon after Reggie Corrigan had been sidelined with a quite cynical knee-in-the-kidneys, right under the nose of a touch judge.

In fairness, the scrum settled after that as John Hayes warmed to his task and had a creditable debut in the green, while Peter Clohessy adapted smoothly to a rare switch to loose-head.

Nevertheless, after professionally seizing control of the game from their fired-up hosts in a polished first-half to lead 24-7, other untypical flaws surfaced in a porous second-half which hinted at what would have been a cataclysmic Boland comeback. At times you wondered, was this really Ireland, Gatland's Ireland?

A rusty Conor McGuinness, who like Conor O'Shea, Victor Costello and Gabriel Fulcher, mixed some good with some bad, fumbled his party piece scoop ball in the prelude to a breakaway try for Mcneill Hendricks off a tap penalty as a sleepy Irish backline left a yawning hole up the touchline.

Marius Goosen careered through the Irish middle like a knife through butter for a second time, and near the end Boland drove over from another line-out cum maul. At times, it got a little scary. But generally, when Ireland had to re-assert control, they did.

Typical of the effectiveness of the replacements (a key element in holding the Irish ship together), Kevin Maggs stemmed the post-interval Boland revival with a big hit on Rickus Lubbe. And Dennis Hickie poached another intercept try. The outstanding Eric Elwood was errorless in tagging on the points and pinning Boland back with pin-point line-kicking.

Most pleasing of all was the opportunism Ireland showed when they worked their way into the opposition 22, usually returning with some points in the bag. This was a big area of improvement, as O'Shea burst through off Mark McCall's pass and McGuinness (flawed but, interestingly, the one player singled out by Bayly) squirmed and reached for the line.

Thus, while the set-piece mistakes were unusually high, the rucking of the pack and the ball retention and probing of the backs set new standards. Rarely has an Irish back-line played so well in all areas of the game under Gatland, or indeed, under his predecessors. "When was the last time Ireland scored 48 points," was Gatland's verdict on this new-found opportunism.

It was a loose, six tries to five win, supplemented by 13 kicks out of 13 from the two out-halves (Johns sensibly slowed the game down and called on Elwood to tap over a couple of penalties at key moments). It was not typical of Gatland's Ireland.

Hence, when Gatland had to be pressed to accentuate the positive, he drew solace in old reliables. "I was pretty happy with the defence. We shut the space down quite well. The referee was a little bit picky at times, but that's something we need to cope with."

The back-line defence, especially in midfield, was the one area of Ireland's game which Boland coach Mike Bayly highlighted. Elwood, McCall, Jonathan Bell and James Topping pushed up in hungry pursuit of tackles. They forced five turnovers or handling errors in the first quarter from the Boland back-line as their pack, ominously, put together phases of four or five rucks.

The fringe tackling was no less impressive, where all the pack worked hard, none more so than the trojan Johns, and Andy Ward excelled. The Kiwi flanker enveloped John Daniels and turned him like a rag doll in the prelude to Elwood's towering up and under, which led to the reverse pass for Topping's well-timed run. As well executed as it's ever been, Boland never saw it coming even if we did.

The winger's angle of running inside Daniels for his second try was no less impressive. In between the tries, Topping put in a crunching follow-up tackle. Oh us of little faith. Gatland saw something there that few others did, and the pity is that we only had 36 minutes of it on this tour.

O'Cuinneagain's muscular back-row try completed a varied first-half. What followed was patchy and porous, yet potent. "When you see the scope for improvement that is there, it's very encouraging, and they know that themselves," said Donal Lenihan. Indeed, in the areas where Ireland have to improve, we know they can.

In any event, despite fears that Ireland would stall on the starting line, they are now up and running. So far, so good.