Warren Gatland's two-and-a-bit-years contract expires on April 1st, and if the IRFU don't announce its renewal for another three-and-a-half years, completing a natural World Cup cycle, then they are going to look rather foolish.
The vast majority of this squad should be around until the next World Cup and in several cases the one after that. So it makes complete sense that the coaching ticket should be contracted up to and including the 2003 finals in Australia. To renew the contract for just one year would be even more daft than the similar offer made to Mike Ruddock and Matt Williams by Leinster.
Ideally, the union should announce an agreement to have Gatland's contract renewed until the next World Cup before the Welsh match, with Eddie O'Sullivan's role as assistant also confirmed until then as part of his overall ambit. That would be a fitting vote of confidence in the Irish coach and also be a good PR gesture.
Unfortunately, the wheels of bureaucracy still move gingerly in 62 Lansdowne Road, and with the president otherwise engaged at the Hong Kong Sevens for the next week, apparently nothing can be done until he and everybody else in the union are present and correct.
In fairness to the union, their playing and contractual structures contributed significantly to Sunday's win over comparatively injury-ravaged opponents. But such prevarication over contracts only conveys an impression of the union as reactive rather than proactive, particularly when set against the FAI's decisiveness over Mick McCarthy.
It's also ironic to think that Gatland is probably on scarcely one-fifth of Graham Henry's reputed Stg £250,000 per annum salary as Welsh coach. The two Kiwi coaches go head-to-head next Saturday week, and suddenly it is the messianic Henry who is copping the flak in his adopted country, admittedly in part because of Welsh embarrassment over the fast-tracking of foreign players into their team.
Nevertheless, Ireland are assured of finishing above Wales in the table, and if they win, second place would be Ireland's highest finish in 15 years. Of course, it would be an awful anti-climax if the job wasn't finished off against the Welsh. Tickets will be like gold dust, and the team is assured of earth-trembling support from the moment they run on to the pitch.
You sense that the team which can't stop breaking records and setting landmarks every time it takes to the pitch hasn't finished yet. They can now record Ireland's first sequence of four successive victories since the record six-in-a-row of 1968-69, and the first four-in-a-row in one championship campaign since the Grand Slam of 1948. Considering the demoralising defeat at Twickenham, there has been a remarkable transformation - though it might also show how fickle sport is. Gatland's Ireland haven't been a million miles from big breakthrough wins before, and if Ireland got any rub of the green on Sunday then it was a case of third time lucky against the French. Who knows what victories in the previous two games might have sparked?
Lens, of course, was the one that really got away, when Ireland imploded in panic after generally being on top for an hour. Even purely in terms of results though, the World Cup was no different than the previous three - won two, lost two.
That game apart, Ireland's only other defeats in their last nine outings were against the world champions and away to the European champions-elect. And even if Ireland met England tomorrow, while they'd assuredly pose more of a threat and be more resilient defensively, Clive Woodward's all-conquerors would still be favourites.
It makes the management's calculated decision to hold back the young bloods until after that Twickenham game look even better. Aside from a return to the more tried and trusted defensive pattern, the team is also attacking with more width and depth.
Gatland is still the main strategist and coach according to the players, but O'Sullivan's influence has clearly been significant and he's also given them some good set-piece moves.
An attempt at a wider game had been tried before, but it has been greatly facilitated by the amended tackle law, which makes it easier to recycle ball wide out. South Africa coach Nick Mallett admitted at the post-World Cup International Board conference in Sydney that he wouldn't countenance moving the ball wider than two or three pairs of hands, and even Australia's game was relatively narrow if unrelenting.
The rule changes since the World Cup have made the Six Nations look like the Super 12 of a couple of years ago. England cottoned on to them better than anybody, with Ireland next in line. Scotland, despite the presence of Ian McGeechan, surprisingly haven't. Against Wales on Saturday Scotland were again recycling dead ball in narrow channels with little or no depth or pace.
But the most influential factor in all this perhaps isn't the rules, or the coach or the assistant coach, but the players, i.e., the selection.
"I feel a bit sorry for Danzer," said one of them of departed assistant-coach Philip Danaher. "He didn't have this talent to work with. But that said, Eddie has clearly made a difference."
In many ways it could be that Gatland and O'Sullivan are closer in their coaching philosophies. Gatland, along with Danaher and Donal Lenihan, brought O'Driscoll into the squad last season as a 20-year-old when he hadn't even played provincial or AIL Division One rugby.
To his presence has been added loose forwards who get quick ruck ball, half-backs who move it out quicker and flatter, and a winger, Denis Hickie, who is the best in the country by a country mile and adds a real cutting edge.
As with Cohen and Tyndall in English shirts, the newer Irish players aren't only fearless and gifted, they don't come with the mental baggage of failure, and they are receptive and open to new ideas. O'Driscoll may be the biggest gem, but not the only one, and the Life of Brian anthem, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, seems particularly apposite. What other side can you look when life's like this?
