Pool A Ireland v Romania: Ireland - 45 Romania - 17 Disposing of a decent middleweight with something to spare in readiness for the heavyweights to come was a satisfying start to Ireland's World Cup.

The nature of the contest, the winning margin and the performance were pretty much as anticipated. In fact, it probably surpassed expectations slightly, given Romania were even better and brighter than feared.

Viewed in the context of the game against Argentina, this was certainly a useful examination of Ireland's set pieces.

By and large they held up well.

The absent Geordan Murphy apart, all Ireland's big hitters look in prime nick, with two of the biggest, Shane Horgan and John Hayes, back in harness.

Horgan's strong running and try were amongst the highlights of the match, even if he'll probably get a minor roasting for not staying out on Mihai Vioreanu in the build-up to Valentin Maftei's late try.

Without direct comparisons being drawn with Murphy, Girvan Dempsey has predictably regained some of his old swagger. He's rarely run more convincingly with the ball, playing a big role in Horgan's try and the first of Denis Hickie's brace while contributing to the counterattack that led to Keith Wood's try. Which is all the more reason why he shouldn't have kicked the ball away in the prelude to one of the Romanian tries.

It wasn't so much Wood's 15th Test try that reasserted he is back to his vintage best.

As is his wont, Wood's knee-pumping early charge set a benchmark, and one work-hungry retreat to clear out a ruck when Dempsey countered earned a second three-pointer for Humphreys, whose unerring accuracy was in marked contrast to Tofan in the second period.

Indeed, you certainly wouldn't have liked to swap outhalves.

The superb surface and well-kept, three-sided Central Coast Stadium (maintained at a cost of €100,000 per year), the sun-kissed kick-off, the picturesque backdrop of pine trees and the Pacific Ocean, the carnival-like spirits of the crowd, may have convinced the folks back home that these were conditions made in rugby heaven. But they were far from it.

The bracing wind blew in from the Pacific Ocean straight down the pitch, and Ireland elected to play with it behind them and try to build up a winning lead by the break. But, while Humphreys and Hickie were able to torpedo the ball huge distances, the wind made skip passes risky and thus made it difficult to play with width.

Even so, unfazed by the swaying posts, Humphreys was immaculate in helping to supplement first-half tries by Horgan and Wood with six kicks from six.

Ultimately, his only miss from eight attempts was one touchline conversion into the wind, which was on target until blown at a near 90-degree angle off course.

He has practised his place-kicking more in the last two months than at any stage in his career. His running, tackling and distribution were also those of a playmaker on top of his game.

With his astute mind, which Eddie O'Sullivan reckons is that of a coach in the making, Humphreys is also worth listening to when analysing a performance. He extolled the many positives, it has to be said, but was honest enough to highlight a couple of the flaws as well.

"Our ruck ball wasn't as quick as we would have liked and because it was slow we had to throw a lot of players into rucks," he conceded. "That's how it looked to me without analysing it on the video."

That said, in addition to the mini-crisis Ireland survived when coming within inches of their lead being cut to 26-14 with half an hour left to play, their response when Tofan made it 26-10 underlined the mental strength of this team.

First Paul O'Connell and Malcolm O'Kelly made the hard yards up the middle. Then Ireland went wide for Gleeson to make the half-break and offload in the tackle. Dempsey ran hard, beating Danut Dumbrava's tackle, and Hickie was in support to touch down. Grabbing games by the scruff of the neck like that is the mark of a good side.

Nor, said Humphreys, were they particularly happy with having their defence busted a few times. In many ways it was, as O'Sullivan said, "as good a defensive performance as we've had in a long time", not least in the spell before half-time when Romania applied concerted close-in pressure and again at 26-7 when Ionut Tofan's long-range drop-goal rebounded off the upright.

As O'Sullivan wryly observed, he wasn't aware of any defensive system in the world that can plan for that, and it needed gutsy try-saving tackles by Dempsey and Keith Gleeson to keep Romania out.

Nor can any amount of defensive practice fine-tune the system like match play. When you see Kevin Maggs, of all people, amongst those missing first-up tackles, you can at least take comfort in knowing it will improve too, though the Wallabies and the Pumas will surely have taken note of Romania's eye for little chips over the advancing green line.

Biarritz reckon they have one of the most promising back rowers in Europe in the magnificently athletic, hard-running 23-year-old Ovidiu Tonita and no one would argue on this evidence. Likewise, the same club's Petru Balan is ranked one of the top half-dozen props in France, while the Racing Club scrumhalf Lucian Sirbu was a clever livewire too.

Rumbling hard close-in, as Wood said afterwards, "they're fully capable of taking a game to the opposition, testing a team's defence and putting teams under pressure. They were incredibly physical at ruck time."

The French influence is profound, and, not shy of pace out wide either, they were well capable of playing expansively. Had they an outhalf of more presence than Tofan they'd be some team. His two-step goalkicking technique would have a kicking coach tearing his hair out and he tended to take the ball too deeply and scrag across field.

But they deserved their two tries and might reflect themselves that a bonus point for four tries was not beyond their reach. At any rate, it'll be a surprise if they're not stronger than the Namibians, and they'll leave their imprint on the Wallabies and the Pumas as well.

Yep, it's even better knowing Romanian rugby is back on track now that Ireland have seen the back of them.

Scoring sequence: 5 mins: Humphreys pen 3-0; 12 mins: Humphreys pen 6-0: 20 mins: Humphreys pen 9-0; 23 mins: Horgan try, Humphreys con 16-0; 36 mins: Wood try, Humphreys con 23-0; 40 (+3) mins: Humphreys pen 26-0; (half-time: 26-0); 45 mins: penalty try, Tofan con 26-7; 51 mins: Tofan pen 26-10; 53 mins: Hickie try 31-10; 60 mins: Costello try, Humphreys con 38-10; 82 mins: Hickie try, O'Gara con 45-10; 85 mins: Maftei try, Andrei con 45-17.

IRELAND: Girvan Dempsey (Leinster); Shane Horgan (Leinster), Brian O'Driscoll (Leinster), Kevin Maggs (Bath), Denis Hickie (Leinster); David Humphreys (Ulster), Peter Stringer (Munster); Marcus Horan (Munster), Keith Wood (Munster, capt), Reggie Corrigan (Leinster), Malcolm O'Kelly (Leinster), Paul O'Connell (Munster), Victor Costello (Leinster), Anthony Foley (Munster), Keith Gleeson (Leinster). Replacements: John Hayes (Munster) for Horan, Alan Quinlan (Munster) for Foley (both 57 mins), Shane Byrne (Leinster) for Wood (66 mins), Ronan O'Gara (Munster) for Humphreys (70 mins), Guy Easterby (Rotherham) for Stringer (75 mins), Donncha O'Callaghan (Munster) for Gleeson (83 mins), John Kelly (Munster) for O'Driscoll (84 mins), Gleeson for O'Kelly (89 mins).

ROMANIA: Danut Dumbrava; Cristian Sauan, V Maftei, Romeo Gontineac (capt), Gabriel Brezoianu; Ionut Tofan, Lucian Sirbu; Petru Balan, Razvan Mavrodin, Marcel Socaciu, Sorin Socol, Agustin Petrichei, George Chiriac, Cristian Petre, Ovidiu Tonita. Replacements: Petrisor Toderasc for Socaciu, Marius Niculai for Petre (both half-time), Cezar Popescu for Balan, Mihai Vioreanu for Sauan (both 57 mins), Ioan Teoderescu for Dumbrava, Iulian Andrei for Sirbu (68-70 mins), Marian Tudori for Chiriac (71 mins).

Referee: Jonathan Kaplan (South Africa).