Time for changes against Romania

Where on earth did that abysmal Irish performance on Sunday come from? Most likely it's a question that the management and players themselves are coming to terms with, and most likely there's a whole host of reasons why, for nothing is black and white with this lot.

It's been ever thus really, for what Irish teams tend to need are no grey areas. So perhaps the escape clause provided by a defeat by the Australians and with it a possible preferential knock-out route to a home quarter-final, sowed the seeds of mental confusion.

Even if true, that only partially explains a flat, and at the same time hurried and anxious display which seeped virtually throughout the entire team. For all the advances brought about by professionalism, depressingly some of the old Irish cliches/truisms (dilute to taste) apparently still apply.

It makes me laugh when former coaches and players collectively bemoan the latest Irish debacle. World-beaters the lot of them of course. Not since 1993 has any Irish team put together three successive victories, and not since the 50s have they done so twice in one decade.

Coupled with 10 successive Australian wins prior to Sunday, this damning statistic and the knowledge that Irish teams rarely put two successive `performances' together, should have forewarned us.

Then again, the Irish public probably weren't expecting a win. A performance would have done. They didn't get one and this reporter has rarely come across such a uniformly damning and negative post-match reaction.

Slightly surprisingly, the previous weekend's World Cup opener had clearly been a highly emotional occasion for the Irish players. Then, for some reason, they couldn't dip into the well again.

Worryingly, there were shades of the Lansdowne Road anti-climax against England last season - supposedly the Big One of each Five Nations campaign. It raises the question as to whether this team can rise to the really big occasion.

Whether over-trained or not, Warren Gatland admitted, too, that they probably didn't focus enough on their rucking in the week before the game, for if they were still there today they probably couldn't produce quick ruck ball.

However, no coach can legislate for the amount of handling errors nor the regularity with which ball was kicked out on the full (by Tom Tierney, David Humphreys and Eric Elwood). The Irish backs provided little or no threat, and there was a surprising amount of kicking from early on into the wind, rather than a willingness to take on Australia with the ball in hand or use Brian O'Driscoll and the target runners.

Though some of the kicks hugged the line, the positional play of Matt Burke was so good, and in such marked contrast to poor Conor O'Shea, that usually it was returned with interest. But all in all, the quality of the ball when it occasionally and eventually reached Humphreys was dismal. He received the ball just 15 times in the match (and Elwood 10 times) whereas Stephen Larkham had the thing in his mits 57 times.

Most of all though, the streetwise Aussies simply stopped Ireland at source. They had done their homework, and arguably nobody does more studiously. Ireland couldn't gain a scrum platform, where the control and communication between Dion O'Cuinneagain and Tierney was poor. Nor could they get their line-out going, where the Australians astutely double-marked the Irish jumper at six, whether it was O'Cuinneagain or Malcolm O'Kelly. Of Ireland's seven throws in the second half, two were driven from the front over the touchline, another was harshly adjudged crooked and another was hauled down close to the line. So basically, Ireland had three line-outs to work with in the second period.

Australia's vastly superior tactical kicking exposed O'Shea's awkwardness with a rolling ball, and, when invariably kicked wide to his left, was done so in the secure knowledge that his onefooted nature ensured he didn't have an angle for a lengthy touchfind.

THE fall-out of Girvan Dempsey's enforced withdrawal is now being felt, for can the Irish management risk throwing Gordon D'Arcy in against the Romanians at Lansdowne Road next Friday?

Indeed, privately, the Irish management must be wondering would they have been better off coping with the flak for resting several first-choice players last Sunday. As it is, the Romanian game has effectively become the first of three knock-out games in a 10-day period. (Oh dear, three wins in a row?). Picking the bulk of the first-choice team again would be akin to, or an expanded version of Mark James flogging a European dead horse in the Ryder Cup. There may be a salient lesson there.

In his recent autobiography Francois Pienaar claimed that South Africa's ability to play everyone in their first two games four years ago (afforded them by their opening pool win over Australia) was crucial in getting their entire squad involved and united in the cause.

Other countries have been able to, or will be able to afford that luxury. But remembering the defeat of Ireland's second-choice side in Musgrave Park, there's a limit to how far Gatland can go.

Still, there must be some benefits to blooding a few of the hitherto unused squad members (such as Kieron Dawson, Bob Casey, Angus McKeen, Mike Mullins and James Topping) this Friday, for there won't be any chances thereafter, and likewise to put a few of the head honchos, such as Keith Wood, Paul Wallace, Paddy Johns (another trojan effort on Sunday), Andy Ward and Kevin Maggs, on the bench.

If the gamble comes off, the reward would be the return to arms of the first-choice side for a play-off tomorrow week in Lens against, thankfully, Canada. They still seem best placed of the sides likely to come third, given a points tally of 42 with Namibia to come.

Unless Samoa beat Wales, they would have to score within 17 points of Canada's total to claim that best third-placed slot - a big task. Mercifully too, Tonga don't seem to have enough points in the kitty, 37, especially with England to come.

The temptation for Ireland may now be to roll up their sleeves and work harder. But they look like a team in need of easing off, and instead taking stock and learning. So who knows, maybe last Sunday's wake-up call and ensuing navel contemplation was in some way a blessing, and that Ireland will be entertaining France or Fiji on Sunday week in the quarterfinals. And we'll all come along optimistically once more and, who knows, maybe this time Ireland will deliver.