Touch of finesse indicates progress

If there was one moment in Sunday's Test which perhaps confirmed Ireland's sea-change since Twickenham last February, it came a couple of minutes before half-time when they were presented with a tap penalty on their 10-metre line. Where, before, there may have been a mini on-field conference, followed in time-honoured fashion with a garryowen and full-throated Lansdowne roar, this time there was a touch of finesse.

Peter Stringer tapped and fed Keith Wood, and immediately all 15 Irish players knew what they were doing. Wood took it up to half-way, the pack drove over to ensure good front foot ball from the recycle, and Stringer fed Ronan O'Gara with John Hayes and Rob Henderson lying deep off either shoulder as decoys to check the drift before the outhalf skip-passed to Brian O'Driscoll for him to speed through the gap.

Alas, his chip over the advancing Thinus Delport drifted beyond the dead ball line. For sure the second-half try by Tyrone Howe was a beautifully worked and choregraphed move, but equally the cohesion and confidence in what Ireland were about in those moments showed how far they've come.

In some respects, the Springboks can learn from some of Ireland's play. Specifically, Harry Viljoen noted the superior depth of Ireland's three-quarters, but this in turn was as much to do with how deep Percy Montgomery took the ball as opposed to the flatter-lieing O'Gara. Rarely can Lansdowne Road have witnessed a team recycling and running static ball to the extent the Boks did.

The pity is that Ireland didn't have another outing against one of the three Southern Hemisphere powers touring Europe. One of these Tests is more beneficial than a host of Tests against inferior opposition such as Japan.

At any rate, Sunday's game will give them plenty of food for thought on the training ground, especially with one eye on the home games against England - for sheer explosiveness and power in contact, on a par with the Boks, and the French.

Ireland will have to improve their continuity game and ability to take the tackle more on their terms, for it's bloody hard to win games when the opposition have the ball for a good nine minutes longer and you're obliged to make in the region of 100 tackles to their 50. This will be less of a problem in the pivotal opener away to the Italians. That's the must-win, the one 60-40 game in Ireland's favour on paper, whereas the English one is more like 60-40 against, even at home, with France in Dublin and Wales and Scotland away at best around the 50-50 mark. Another rollercoaster then, with pretty much anything possible.

The management can alter things here and there, but in most cases any changes would giveth as well as taketh away. A bit more power/explosiveness or mobility could be added to the second row with the return of Mick Galwey or Jeremy Davidson. Anthony Foley, too, would need to improve with Munster in January after a below-par game on Sunday or the management may move the impressive Eric Miller to number eight with Andy Ward at six.

They will assuredly consider change at scrumhalf if and when Guy Easterby comes back into the frame. Peter Stringer can play better than he did on Sunday, when he became a little harried and hurried. The wind too may have affected his passing technique. Likewise, Ronan O'Gara can play better than that. Considering there were a few off-colour performances, and the key decision-makers, numbers eight, nine and 10, didn't function as they can, that shows how winnable this game was. Errors such as the spilled balls from O'Driscoll, one of which resulted in a turnover of five points for Corne Krige, are perhaps inevitable with such a high-risk game, but Ireland should be clinical in their execution.

Significantly, too, their kick-and-chase game can be improved, for the costly sequence of missed follow-up tackles by Howe (twice), O'Gara (twice), Kieron Dawson, David Humphreys and ultimately Malcolm O'Kelly and Girvan Dempsey on the counter-attacking Delport and Pieter Rossouw possibly cost Ireland the match.

A bit of fine-tuning may be required here or there then, but the management were largely vindicated by the changes at full back, centre, and number six, and there wasn't much else they could have done in that regard. For the time being, then, striking in skirmishes on the flanks and then retreating into the bushes seems the tactics best designed for this team, with a more bossy attitude in contact against the fellow non-heavyweights.