International Test/ Australia 37 Ireland 15: After two praiseworthy performances in New Zealand, this was a dreadful end to a glorious season for Irish rugby. Quite why it came to this is a matter of conjecture.
The strong suspicion lurks that Eddie O'Sullivan went to the well once too often and found it dry. The alternative is that Ireland still have huge ground to make up if their game is to evolve sufficiently to beat the Southern Hemisphere big boys at a variation of their own game.
Had O'Sullivan's selection policy and approach yielded the win away to a Southern Hemisphere giant he clearly craved, he would have been handsomely vindicated. But it was clearly too big an ask, and now his strategy looks like a miscalculation.
Admitting as much wouldn't be a catastrophe, but the Irish coach bristled at a valid question that perhaps fatigue was a factor in an error-strewn display and in the last-half-hour collapse.
In the immediate post-match interview, Brian O'Driscoll had admitted, "The legs got heavy; three weeks of Test rugby were a factor."
Too right they must have been. As Girvan Dempsey, David Wallace and Peter Stringer admitted, nothing about the Six Nations or the Heineken Cup would have equated to these three games on the bounce. Yet O'Sullivan maintained, "I don't think it was a major factor . . . there was no logical reason for making changes. Who would I drop?"
To the argument it wasn't a question of dropping players, but of rotating or resting them in some positions to manage his resources, O'Sullivan countered, "I can't see the logic in making sweeping changes," and, pointing to Ireland taking the lead after 52 minutes, concluded, "Suddenly it can't be a wrong decision 20 minutes later."
One would have thought a 26-0 salvo in the last 28 minutes was more salient in analysing if there was a fatigue factor - mental as much as physical after the provinces' emotional highs and lows - not to mention the inaccuracy in what are normally strengths of this team, such as the lineout and Peter Stringer's service.
By contrast, his counterparts use squad rotation with a view to managing resources. John Connolly accepted O'Sullivan was "a smart coach" who knows his players, but in a treatise on the demands of modern rugby he said yesterday, "You need a very strong bench and rugby is a 28-man squad now.
"Ireland is like Australia. With six or seven Celtic League games, eight or nine Heineken Cup, and 12 Tests, you can't do it with the same 15 players. That's the challenge for Australia and the same with you guys. We're trying to do this, that's why we've had to take a leap of faith in the front row in the last three weeks. We also did that with (George) Gregan. You've got to have a squad philosophy. We can't take the giant leap the All Blacks have taken but we've put our toes over the cliff."
And, like the All Blacks, they're at home and in the relatively early stages of their season. Take for example, Saturday's scrumhalves. Gregan was "rested" the previous week; he returned refreshed and with a point to prove in a try-scoring, man-of-the-match performance. Stringer, in his 31st game of the season (28 of them starting) and a third successive Saturday start, gave possibly his weariest display of what has been his best but most demanding campaign.
Yet again, Ireland's opponents made more proactive use of the bench. In response to falling behind, Australia made an immediate triple substitution, and the Wallabies cranked up the tempo.
There was an inevitability about it when Mark Gerard burst through John Hayes and Neil Best off the sixth phase of an intense, multi-phase attack. And when tighthead Greg Holmes ran in a try from 60 metres after Lote Tuqiri's turnover dumping of Trimble, the die was cast.
Following Gregan's try, he moved lineout ball to George Smith, who fed Larkham, whereupon Cameron Shepherd timed his run from deep in taking a deft inside pass. Such synchronisation involving inexperienced replacements is not something one associates with this Irish team.
In any event, if fatigue wasn't a factor, then this really was a bad performance. This, after all, was an Irish team that Larkham reckoned beforehand was the best he'd faced - a squad honed from a provincial system that provided the European Cup champions and semi-finalists and a Celtic League 1-2-3. No Ireland coach has ever been dealt such a hand.
The direction and purpose in what Australia were doing, especially when Gregan and Larkham called the shots, was superior, and the greater depth Australia employed, with runners coming onto the ball at pace, was striking.
Ireland again competed magnificently at the breakdown, playing Kelvin Deaker - who allowed quite a contest on the deck - to the limit. One typical, bearpaw steal by Denis Leamy close to his own line was the pick of many. Another by John Hayes led to the superb Jerry Flannery-Leamy-Andrew Trimble-created try for Neil Best, which augmented O'Gara's finish off his own crosskick to Shane Horgan, with David Wallace the link, and briefly raised hopes of a win.
However, the repeated spillages, the lack of precision in executing moves, added up. As did the Wallabies' ability to locate weaknesses. Ireland sought to engage the Wallabies in their own game, tapping penalties and moving ball from deep rather than engage them in the kind of close-quarter combat the Munster pack and halves flourish in.
Obliged to play a ball-in-hand game, they ultimately wilted.
The suspicion that Ireland are better than this lingers. Otherwise, well, they've still a lot of ground to make up. A good tour in many ways, from which the players (half of them, anyway) can only benefit. And perhaps the coach and his staff also.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 14 mins: Mortlock pen 3-0; 20: Latham try 8-0; 27: O'Gara pen 8-3; 34: Mortlock pen 11-3 (half-time 11-3); 42: O'Gara try 11-8; 51: Best try, O'Gara con 11-15; 53: Gerard try, Mortlock con 18-15; 59: Holmes try, Mortlock con 25-15; 69: Gregan try 30-15; 76: Shepherd try, Mortlock con 37-15.
AUSTRALIA: C Latham (Queensland Reds); M Gerard (ACT Brumbies), S Mortlock (ACT Brumbies), M Rogers (NSW Waratahs), L Tuqiri (NSW Waratahs); S Larkham (ACT Brumbies), G Gregan (ACT Brumbies); G Holmes (Queensland Reds), T McIsaac (Western Force), G Shepherdson (Western Force); N Sharpe (Western Force), D Vickerman (NSW Waratahs); M Chisholm (ACT Brumbies), G Smith (ACT Brumbies), R Elsom (NSW Waratahs). Replacements: C Rathbone (ACT Brumbies) for Rogers (31 mins), J Paul (ACT Brumbies) for McIsaac, A Baxter (NSW Waratahs) for Shepherdson, C Shepherd (Western Force) for Rathbone (all 52 mins), W Palu (NSW Waratahs) for Elsom (66 mins), P Waugh (NSW Waratahs) for Chisholm (71 mins), S Cordingley (Queensland Reds) for Gregan (73 mins).
IRELAND: G Dempsey (Leinster), S Horgan (Leinster), B O'Driscoll (Leinster, capt), G D'Arcy (Leinster), A Trimble (Ulster); R O'Gara (Munster), P Stringer (Munster); M Horan (Munster), J Flannery (Munster), J Hayes (Munster); D O'Callaghan (Munster), P O'Connell (Munster); N Best (Ulster), D Wallace (Munster), D Leamy (Munster). Replacements: B Young (Ulster) for Horan (60 mins), M O'Driscoll (Munster) for Best (61 mins), R Best (Ulster) for Flannery (67 mins), I Boss (Ulster) for Stringer (both 67 mins), K Gleeson (Leinster) for Wallace (71 mins), G Murphy (Leicester) for D'Arcy (73 mins), J Staunton (Wasps) for Trimble (80 mins).
Referee: Kelvin Deaker (New Zealand).
