'Over the last 12 months we've underachieved hugely'

THERE CAN be no more fitting metaphor for the 2007-'08 season than the sight of Brian O'Driscoll endeavouring to hobble on with what is hopefully no more than a strained hamstring before eventually giving in to the ravages of the day and the season.

Over a period of nearly 11 months and three campaigns, no one has given so much for, alas and alack, so little. For all the optimism of 11 months ago, the season has yielded just five wins, none of them of the stellar variety, amid eight defeats and the crushing deflation of possibly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity lost at the World Cup.

No doubt growing weary of explaining away another setback, the Irish captain admitted he half wanted to "wake up and let it be the 2008-'09 season, this being a year of the one that got away in a lot of contexts. But you've got to learn from these two though and use the upset and the frustration to your advantage, and know that when you go out the next time to make do whatever has to be done to turn it around and make that little difference."

That was the talk in the dressingroom afterwards, and in particular targeting the All Blacks match, not in November, but from this point onwards. If these two Antipodean near-misses help achieve that much, well then they will have served a mighty purpose.

Asked what is preventing Ireland from winning these games away to the big guys in the south, O'Driscoll said: "It's a little bit of the unknown. We've been here and pushed these sides so close, so many times; we just don't have that final element. I think Eoin Reddan made a good point after the game, and that is maybe when we're getting to a crucial point in a game, when we feel as though the tide is turning, we are just throwing those 50-50 passes when we just need to be a little bit more stable, a little bit more secure and build phase, and just try and grind our results rather than throw the miracle ball. If we get anything, that's probably one of the most relevant points that we'll get from this tour."

Yet in the longer-term, Irish rugby is going to have to re-evaluate end-of-season "tours" at least a little. To bring over squads of 30 and leave seven or eight of them idle, instead taking them on official crawls of Irish pubs and other duties and functions, seems both wasteful and degrading. Why was Geordan Murphy rushed straight from the Premiership final at Twickenham if he was not even going to be in the original Test 22.

When asked what positives Ireland could take from this tour, O'Driscoll struggled to go beyond Robert Kearney - the one revelation of the tour - and Stephen Ferris. But Ferris wouldn't have been here, much less on the pitch, if it wasn't for a spate of backrow injuries. And you wonder how far Kearney might have progressed this season if it wasn't for retirements and injuries to the outside backs. Paddy Wallace also made a decent fist of inside centre, especially against the All Blacks.

Otherwise, in terms of personnel, Ireland learned little. It's understandable the high achieving, ambitious front-liners want to play every game, all the more so as they were men on a mission of redemption on this tour. But, recalling the utter failure to use a squad system like no other country at the last two World Cups, if an investment isn't going to be made on perceived fringe players to broaden Ireland's depth on these end-of-season tours, when then?

In taking Tommy Bowe's try-scoring pass, the Irish captain had to pull the ball in and was collared by Matt Giteau, but swivelled to score his 32nd Test try. It was his first of any kind since scoring against Argentina in the World Cup. He deserved that and so much more. "Same scenario again, the same left hamstring," he sighed wearily, "just a little tweak in it and I just lost the power in it."

The pitch could scarcely have looked less tacky had it been giant snakes and ladders board, what with nine "ads" and Aussie Rules markings. Shortly cropped, used the night before and barren in patches, with the moisture generated by 41,478 under a closed roof, O'Driscoll described it as hard yet sticky.

"And it's happened before on those sort of surfaces. So it's going to be a big pre-season. I can't handle any more of end-of-year doing hamstrings. I've had it up to here. I'm going to have a good hard look at making sure I alleviate those frustrations, because there's other frustrations in life that have to take precedence, and injury shouldn't step in the way."

Coach Michael Bradley admitted he "got a great kick out of" the tour. "Working with these guys has been fantastic - I really enjoyed it." Yet, when asked, he was not of a mind to make any recommendations to the IRFU based on his experience, and instead the abiding feeling was one of frustration. "The effort . . . was exceptional in terms of it being the end of the season and a disappointing season (on the national front). When you achieve that level of commitment, you then want to get your victories. It's just very, very frustrating."

These were sentiments echoed by Bowe. "Over the last 12 months we've underachieved hugely for the players that we have. This was the crunch year, not coming away with what we wanted, and we've let ourselves down again. It's made us realise we have what it takes to beat the best in the world. We've a new coach coming in and he'll bring fresh ideas and a bit of excitement."

Ferris seemed to spend much of the night plaintively looking at Christophe Berdos and, still seething with frustration, he commented: "I thought the referee was quite harsh on us. Very frustrating, he gave a penalty just after we came on for binding which was very harsh. At the scrum they were dictating, anything we said he told us to zip it, we weren't getting anything, they were in his ear. We were trying to speed it up but they kept talking to him and slowing it down."

One last lament then. And goodbye to '07-'08.