A sunny Sunday morning, surfers in the sea and the Irish players lazily ambling around on the beachfront and in the cafes with throngs of Sydney weekenders and a smattering of Irish fans. The height of their activity was a midday swim on Terrigal's well-populated beach. There are worse ways to have "a rehab".
They'd dusted off the cobwebs and then relaxed late into the night before, and yesterday they could contentedly reflect on a job reasonably well done against Romania on Saturday. A sixth successive win, the 16th in 18 games, by 45-17, a bonus point, the return of Shane Horgan and John Hayes and no injuries of note. Early days admittedly, but happy days so far.
All Black Tana Umaga's second and last World Cup, sadly, looks like it has been ended by a knee ligament injury. Wallabies' coach Eddie Jones has confirmed Dave Giffin's might be as well, not because of the concussion he suffered in his heavy fall early in the second half of Friday's opener, but because of the shoulder injury he also suffered at the same time.
So viewed in that context, Ireland appear to be in rude health. To emerge from a bruising 90-minute-plus with the Romanians relatively unscathed was almost as big a plus as the encouragement derived from the win itself.
The dressing-room talk afterwards was all about how much The Oaks had improved, and how it had felt like running into trees. The medical and physio staff were as busy as they'd be after any Test match.
Keith Gleeson (seven stitches in a head wound), Anthony Foley (knee strain), Brian O'Driscoll (whose rib cage had felt the full impact of Petru Balan's massive frame) and Keith Wood (dead leg) were treated, but none of the injuries were serious. Ireland, touch wood, will have a clean bill of health when announcing their side on Wednesday for their second Pool A game, against Namibia on Sunday.
Nothing will have lifted the Irish spirits more than the sight of John Hayes finally returning for a good 30-minute work-out and, even more, the impact he made. "It was good and I'm just delighted to be back. It's been a long time since the game against England in March," said Hayes, who confirmed he felt fine and suffered no reaction afterwards.
Romanian prop Petru Balan departed with a knee injury, which has cleared up and will enable him to apply his mighty scrummaging and running game against Australia (Saturday) and Argentina (Wednesday week).
Within three minutes of his arrival, Hayes got the nudge on a five-metre scrum which made it all the easier for Victor Costello to plough over for the key fourth try, and shoving the Romanians off their own ball later in the game elevated the spirits further.
"Yeah, that was satisfying," the ultra-modest tight-head admitted a tad sheepishly. "It was so important after coming on that I got straight into the game and any scrum on your own line or the opposition's is an important one to start with. For other players it's different, but the first scrum for a front-row forward is when you really get into a game."
It rained hard in the afternoon yesterday, but it won't have dampened the mood too much. The Romanian game drew twice as many Irish as you'd get in Ireland. Next Sunday the Namibian game (kick-off 8 p.m. local time, 11 a.m. Irish) in Sydney's Aussie Stadium is a 40,792 sell-out. How Irish is that?
There is a strong argument for starting some of those on the bench against Romania or involving the additional squad members, say, Eric Miller or Simon Easterby. Furthermore, for example, Ronan O'Gara has started only one game since June, But O'Sullivan has stated repeatedly he will start pretty much his strongest team in every game. Thus, the most obvious change, and perhaps the only one, would be giving Hayes the first hour or so as a precursor to a full game against the Pumas.
Argentina have made a massive 14 changes for tomorrow's encounter with Namibia in Gosford, with Leeds winger Diego Albanese the only player to keep his starting spot.
ARGENTINA: J Hernandez; H Senillosa, M Gaitan, J Fernandez-Miranda, D Albanese; G Quesada, N Fernandez-Miranda; M Reggiardo, F Mendez, M Scelzo, R Alvarez, P Sporleder, M Durand, L Ostiglia, P Bouza. Replacements: M Ledesma, R Roncero, P Albacete, F Lobbe, A Pichot, F Contepomi, I Corleto.
