Ireland - 14 Australia - 30: By the end, George Smith was wrestling the ball off Geordan Murphy to turn and run at the Irish defence before flipping a one-handed reverse pass behind his back. Were there a doctor of rugby in Australia this Irish team would have been just what he would have prescribed.

By half-time, Australia didn't really seem to be going anywhere and were grateful enough to be only 6-3 down. Every move and pattern looked nicely choreographed and like we'd seen it all before, which was probably because we had. Ireland's defensive coach, Graham Steadman, had clearly done his homework and Australia did nothing original or off the cuff to penetrate.

Admittedly, there was palpably more desire generally and more aggression in defence specifically. The green line quickly took three or four steps up and forced handling errors or ensured the Wallabies ran into an often impenetrable wall.

Amid a fair plethora of handling errors and turnovers by two sides low on confidence, there was also more variety in the tactics, mixing up territory with some good running rugby. The pity was that a superbly executed left-to-right move off a scrum - with crisp hands and everybody running straight - didn't see Geordan Murphy's pass go to Tommy Bowe, although whether he would have beaten the covering Chris Latham to the corner is moot. Some of those missed chances often look more gilt-edged than they actually are.

However, as feared, Ireland's already brittle psyche took a big hit last week when an alarmingly defeatist attitude, flawed strategy and flawed selection left them ripe for the Kiwi plucking. And as feared, Australia's need was the greater and once the game started to unravel so did Ireland.

It didn't help that the lineout disintegrated. The departure of the 75-times capped Malcolm O'Kelly with concussion undoubtedly was a factor. But Ireland had the option of Simon Easterby at the back, whereas Australia don't have a specialist catcher in their back row, yet after using the ploy for the first lineout drive of the game, Ireland rarely seemed to go back there.

It was another example of this team not thinking clearly, not playing what they see in front of them. Too much of what they do again appeared preordained on the training ground. There was the sight of Murphy declining to use the potential of four men on his outside off a quick turnover when hoofing the ball downfield.

Not for the first time, you thought of Murphy in his Leicester jersey and found it hard to imagine him doing likewise.

There was Shane Byrne taking a pass in midfield and straightening into traffic with men to spare out wide, which coupled with Matt McCullough's knock-on from Marcus Horan's clever, looped pass perhaps underlined that there are insufficient skills through the team to adapt to more of a running game.

There was John Hayes also taking a pass from David Humphreys in midfield to slow down another move in the middle of the pitch, which again culminated in McCullough fumbling D'Arcy's pass wide on the right.

McCullough, it's worth stressing, has better hands than that, but he was just too anxious to start rumbling.

As happened last week, the sudden improvement in the Irish scrum (or at any rate the one big shunt of the day) whether coincidental or not, came after the introduction of Rory Best, albeit during his paltry four minutes and also after Al Baxter had replaced David Fitter. The Ulster hooker is worth looking at from the start next week, along with Jerry Flannery on the bench.

However, Eddie O'Sullivan's disinclination to introduce five of his replacements bench - and as Matt McCullough's arrival was forced by Malcolm O'Kelly's bout of concussion, the only tactical change was Humphreys for O'Gara - was a commentary on the quality of his choice there to begin with.

Had any of a raft of locks - Bob Casey, Trevor Brennan, Leo Cullen, Mick O'Driscoll - or Anthony Foley or David Wallace been there, that would have strengthened Ireland's options, but only Humphreys, in truth, looked to have obvious impact potential.

Whether by design or inclination, Ireland had adopted a running strategy after the interval team talk, and paid a costly price for it - 10 points to be precise.

First Donncha O'Callaghan was done for not releasing. Then the Wallabies profited from a turnover after Denis Leamy took it up, the Wallabies got their patterns going, Hugh McMeniman took a lovely line back inside and offloaded for Drew Mitchell to pump his legs and adroitly ground the ball one-handed.

Thus, as ever, Ireland had to be losing for Humphreys to be brought on in the first place and in need of his ability to orchestrate catch-up rugby.

Unusually, Humphreys actually had almost half an hour to change things around, and he was unfortunate in the way things panned out.

For sure he missed his tackle on Chris Latham for the Australians' second try, which pushed the score out to 20-9, and left Ireland with even more catching up to do. But, as Humphreys himself observed after looking up at the big screen, TV videos confirmed the impression conveyed to the naked eye that Chris White was wrong, and wrongly placed, in judging Humphreys's flat pass to Gordon D'Arcy was forward. Sod's law decreed they scored off the resultant put-in.

Later, reading the situation correctly in trademark style, Humphreys switched from narrow to blind side and sought to loop a skip pass to Horgan, which had try written all over it. Instead, his left arm was hit as he made the pass, replacement hooker Tatafu Polata-Nau intercepted and Mitchell sprinted away for his second score, which Mat Rogers's conversion made into the definitive 14-point turnover.

Humphreys did inject pace into one sustained move that showcased Horan's footwork and handling ability in stepping inside one tackle and passing across his body, left to right, for Murphy to put Horgan over.

His detractors will say that Horan will have more trying times in the tight, but there aren't too many around like Marcus.

It was a sumptuous moment of skill, a late shaft of light amid the gloom enveloping this game and this team.

SCORING SEQUENCE: 8 mins: O'Gara pen 3-0; 27: Rogers pen 3-3; 35: O'Gara pen 6-3 (half-time 6-3); 42: Rogers pen 6-6; 45: Mitchell try, Rogers con 6-13; 58: Humphreys pen 9-13; 67: Latham try, Rogers con 9-20; 73: Mitchell try, Rogers con 9-27; 77: Horgan try 14-27; 83: Rogers pen 14-30.

IRELAND: G Murphy (Leicester); S Horgan (Leinster), A Trimble (Ulster), G D'Arcy (Leinster), T Bowe (Ulster); R O'Gara (Munster), P Stringer (Munster); M Horan (Munster), S Byrne (Saracens), J Hayes (Munster); D O'Callaghan (Munster), M O'Kelly (Leinster); S Easterby (Llanelli, capt), J O'Connor (Wasps), D Leamy (Munster). Replacements: M McCullough (Ulster) for O'Kelly (18 mins), D Humphreys (Ulster) for O'Gara (53 mins), R Best (Ulster) for Byrne (54-57 mins). Unused: S Best (Ulster), N Best (Ulster), K Campbell (Ulster), G Dempsey (Leinster).

AUSTRALIA: C Latham (Queensland Reds); M Gerrard (ACT Brumbies), L Tuqiri (NSW Waratahs), M Turinui (NSW Waratahs), D Mitchell (Queensland Reds); M Rogers (NSW Waratahs), G Gregan (ACT Brumbies); G Holmes (Queensland Reds), B Cannon (NSW Waratahs), D Fitter (ACT Brumbies); H McMeniman (Queensland Reds), N Sharpe (Queensland Reds); J Roe (Queensland Reds), P Waugh (NSW Waratahs), G Smith (ACT Brumbies). Replacements: A Baxter (NSW Waratahs) for Fitter (53 mins), W Sailor (Queensland Reds) for Gerrard (66 mins), T Polata-Nau (ACT Brumbies) for Cannon, M Henjak (ACT Brumbies) for Gregan (both 73 mins). Unused: M Chisholm (ACT Brumbies), S Fava (ACT Brumbies), L Johannson (Queensland Reds). Sinbinned: G Smith (70-80 mins).

Referee: C White (England).