Irish defence gets an early wake-up call

Dion O'cuinneagain stood shirtless in the tunnel underneath the main stand of the Sydney Football Stadium. After an attractive pretty blond had finished her interview, suddenly a forest of tape recorders were thrust in front of him looking for explanations for this defeat. This is the reality of being Irish captain.

He spoke of the handling errors and turnovers, the basic errors and lack of discipline, not finding touch, the breakdown in defensive communication, of lifting the team's "concentration and mental aptitude by about 20 per cent," and of it being a useful wake-up call.

However, as wake-up calls go, this one wasn't so much a gentle ringing of a mini alarm clock, more like a fire brigade, sirens at full tilt, breaking down the bedroom walls.

For sure it will have been a rude awakening, and maybe that's no bad thing in some respects, but the problem is Ireland have to start rebuilding the walls and only have a week to do it.

In time-honoured Irish fashion they'll roll up their sleeves and work even harder during the week and seek to achieve O'Cuinneagain's stated targets of near perfect training sessions in pursuit of the "perfect game", they'll need next week.

It wouldn't take a rugby Einstein to guess that the defence will be the focus of much attention. It's extraordinary to think that this slightly redeveloped and restructured team might already have become dependant on the 20-year-old Brian O'Driscoll, but that's how it looked here.

Arguably nothing damaged the Irish cause more than the 12th minute dead leg O'Driscoll picked up after chasing his own kick ahead. The young Blackrock recruit had already made one useful half-break and continued to be one of Ireland's most potent runners; once straightening the line in trademark fashion after Eric Elwood had run laterally, but then getting injured again when brilliantly offloading one-handed for Conor O'Shea in the preamble to Andy Ward's burst for the posts and Trevor Brennan's over-ruled 'try' before Elwood made it 13-10 with the last kick of the half.

Having already conceded a soft try when Stu Pinkerton crashed through Reggie Corrigan and Matt Mostyn the cracks began to open in the 38th minute when the Waratahs outflanked Ireland's four-up defence, going right, and then had the numbers going left when the ball travelled through three forwards for Scott Staniforth to score in the opposite corner.

For almost a game and a half, O'Driscoll's speed and aggression had enabled him to push up and cut off the supply lines out wide. But once Mike Mullins replaced O'Driscoll at the break, Ireland were continually outflanked as the Waratahs added four more tries through Matt Dowling.

This is nothing new. Two summers ago, Norman Berryman and Jeff Wilson scored nine tries in two games against Niall Woods; last summer Stefan Terblanche scored four on his test debut against Dennis Hickie and on Saturday Matt Dowling scored four opposite Girvan Dempsey. Maybe this is not entirely co-incidental. Maybe it's not entirely the fault of the Irish left-wingers concerned.

Ireland played a slightly different version of their four-up drift defence, with the winger playing outside in, and NSW reacted with cold-eyed efficiency. They ran two players off the ball diagonally, with the second centre running straight to check the drift. Mullins, particularly, seemed to have difficulty fulfilling the role O'Driscoll had been filling by moving up to cut off the supply lines out wide, and so the wingers were hopelessly exposed time after time.

Australia may well feel this is a simple method of skinning Ireland again next Saturday, but Ireland will assuredly focus on this repeatedly during the week and the defence ought to be a good deal stronger. All the more so if O'Driscoll plays.

With the ball in hand, Ireland are undoubtedly creating more than they were a year ago, say, but weren't accurate in the last pass or in getting that extra support runner to the ball in order to finish off some stunning moves. Often, the attempted 'blind' pass in the tackle was intercepted by an eagle-eyed Waratah.

Basically, Ireland are attempting to develop a fluid, 15-man game, in which forwards can interchange with backs akin to what the Scots thrillingly showed in winning then recent Five Nations.

Hiccups were bound to happens. The difference is that the Scots began the process here in Oz (and beat New South Wales) while in Paris, particularly, they possessed the kind of tight five athletes and ball players which Ireland are not over-endowed with.

As with the opening game, Ireland's ruck ball was continually slowed down or even robbed on the deck. (better though Andy Ward played, the Dublin-born Keith Gleeson looking like the number 7 Ireland crave), until the tourists seemed to get palpably angry in the final quarter and rediscover their earlier low rucking methods with even greater venom.

Overall though, few individuals enhanced their reputations. None of the props are contributing enough and even the scrum was a disappointment (where Paul Wallace was again penalised, twice, for not binding with his right arm). The same might be said of the second-row. Although Trevor Brennan put in his hits and took on the ball better than any other forward, the back-row could do with Victor Costello's thrusts over the gain line off the scrum and off the fringes - where Ireland made little impact - and so use O'Cuinneagain as more of a roving runner.

The reservations about the Ciaran Scally-Eric Elwood halfback combo proved justified. The latter, especially, gamely battled on with a rib injury but over-kicked, and badly, hardly manoeuvring Matt Burke at all and cramped the space of those outside him at times. With a structured gameplan, he'll invariably do a job, but this style requires more off-the-cuff stuff, to which he is less suited. , and he is nothing like the almost buoyantly self-confident player of exactly a year ago.

Were O'Driscoll ruled out, then the midfield options are limited.

Inside centres still abound. The wingers are a bit of a Hobson's choice, while Conor O'Shea remains in good nick and rounded off Ireland's best try. The key was rare good yardage from the pack via Brennan and Ross Nesdale; Mostyn's good angle onto Elwood's reverse pass and the support of Dempsey.

Ireland will point to the other chances created that weren't taken, and on a better day the ways and means of preventing some of the six that were conceded. But a neutral would point to the rusty Matt Burke's inability to kick snow off a rope as well as his disallowed try, and that Mostyn's was an intercept try. It could also have been 50-odd to 17.

It's going to be a long week.

Scoring sequence: 6 mins Burke pen 3-0; 24 mins Pinkerton try 8-0; 30 mins O'Shea try, Elwood con 8-7; 38 mins Staniforth try 13-7; 40 mins Elwood pen 13-10; (half-time 13-10) 43 mins Dowling try 18-10; 52 mins Dowling try, Burke con 25-10; 60 mins Dowling try, Burke con 32-10; 63 mins Mostyn try, Humphreys con 32-17; 72 mins Dowling try, Burke con 39-17.

Ireland: C O'Shea; M Mostyn, B O'Driscoll, K Maggs, G Dempsey; E Elwood, C Scally; R Corrigan, R Nesdale, P Wallace, P Johns, J Davidson, T Brennan, D O'Cuinneagain (capt), A Ward. Replacements - M Mullins for O'Driscoll (half-time), D Humphreys for Elwood, P Clohessy for Corrigan, M O'Kelly for Johns (all 50 mins).

New South Wales: M Burke; M Dowling, J Jones-Hughes, M Stcherbina, S Staniforth; D McRae, S Payne; R Harry, M Crick, C Blades, S Domoni, J Welborn, S Pinkerton (capt), W Ofahengaue, K Gleeson. Replacements - P Besseling for Domani (38 mins), F Dyson for Harry (47 mins), T Tavalea for Crick, S Bowen for McRae, S Qatavi for Besseling (all 73 mins).

Referee: P Marshall (New South Wales).