Players' reaction: So the player who never really did anything too outrageous to get dropped save ship a serious injury and watch a couple of young tykes move in to assume his place, made Eddie O'Sullivan's life a mite more complicated, or perhaps, less anxious.

Denis Hickie won't go away and yesterday gave comfort to a coach who was looking for performances. With Andrew Trimble attending to his damaged hamstring after a barnstorming display last week against South Africa, Hickie arrived back to let O'Sullivan know there is little need for concern out wide.

"It's great to be in that position where you can come in and feel so confident about the guys around you," said the Leinster winger. "That's where this Irish team is at the moment. There are a lot of new guys coming in and playing very well. Eddie has a lot of tough decisions to make and I'm sure he will make them. All I can do is what I've done today. It's up to Eddie to pick who he wants to pick but as long as I keep playing well I know I've done all that I can."

A try and some sniffing around for a second, especially in the second half when Ronan O'Gara's weighted cross-field kick bounced kindly and Hickie took off from inside the Australian 22. While he was grounded, the message was that one of Ireland's best finishers was back and prowling.

"After the win against South Africa, I knew we were going to be confident but I also thought Australia were going to be a step up from them," he added. "We were very conscious of having to take a step up and having to play better than last week and I think we certainly did that.

"I haven't been around in terms of playing in the team. It was kind of strange. It was almost as if I hadn't been away at all. That's how it felt. The guys that are there I obviously play with a lot anyway and I've played with the likes of Ronan (O'Gara), Strings (Stringer) and Geordy (Murphy) 40 or 50 times at this stage."

Hickie's claims, like the rest of the team, were tempered by increasingly greater aspirations. Again the post-match reaction was of a side on the road but feeling the direction it was taking and the speed at which it was advancing was more than satisfying.

But with Paul O'Connell few things are ever perfect. The secondrow, pleased with the performance, also saw the potholes.

"We're disappointed with the second-half performance," said the Munster captain. "I think our skill levels were up there. It's just a pity we didn't follow it up in the second half. Sometimes your experience subconsciously comes into a match and you start doing all the things you need to win a game so we started playing the corners and we started to slow things down."

The continuity of success was also a factor. Glorious defeat is no longer celebrated, or, tolerated. It's one of those things like drinking the night before a match or having a fag in the dressingroom at half-time that belongs to a darker past.

Beating Australia after South Africa was critical. The taking of two Tri-Nations teams in a row as important.

"It was very important," added O'Connell. "I think we came close down in New Zealand during the summer and when you come close you've got to do the next thing and go and beat them. So we've done that and I think it would have been a big setback if we hadn't won these two games.

"It gets a bit of momentum going for us. We've to do it more often, I think, going into the World Cup. We've the Six Nations coming up now and that's going to be massive but we have confidence."

And like Hickie coming back in full throttle for a rescue attempt on his wing position, so too have others given O'Sullivan a bigger comfort zone for next week's match against the Pacific Islands and even further into the new year's challenges.

"Sometimes guys come into the team and they think it's my first cap or my first couple of caps and I'll just get in there and hold my own," adds O'Connell. "But we need cocky guys coming in to train and trying to be the best players on the pitch and I think that's what Neil Best has done, that's what Bossy's (Isaac Boss) done."

For Gordon D'Arcy, the poetry was in the performance and the sweetness of the victory in winning with some intelligence and dogged craft.

"We contained them so that curtailed their ability to offload and play the high-risk game that they play," said the Irish centre. "When we had to carry the ball into the wind we took it under the arm, held on to the ball. The ball was sacred. If we hold on to the ball then they can't run at us. We had the wind and you'd be a fool not to play the corners with a wind that strong," added D'Arcy.

"I think it's a progression from last week."