How can coach believes there’s light at the end of the tunnel?

Ireland 43 Romania 12

After the hiding from a half-strength New Zealand side followed by defeat by a poor Australian sid and now Saturday’s awful outing against Romania, he believes the autumn internationals have served Ireland in a favourable light. How else can you interpret his comment that “our glass is half full rather than half empty.”

At least he had the grace to accept that “I’m sure there will be disagreement about that.”

He got that in one. Frankly, I believe the glass is actually less than half empty and that the predictable shortcomings going into the three matches have been glaringly exposed. The coach is correct when he says that they are well off in the back five of the pack. But what about the front three? And the half-backs and the back division in general? Surely that’s all in a state of flux.

O’Sullivan will also ask himself if he used the series, and especially Saturday’s clash with the desperately limited Romanians, in the best possible manner? Was this not a chance missed to let us see what Jamie Heaslip and Robert Kearney, two young men who have lit up Leinster’s season, could achieve at a higher level?

Why was Jerry Flannery, 27 last month, kept kicking his heels until the final 15 minutes when the 34 year-old Shane Byrne was completely anonymous and in any case has nothing to offer where the future and especially the 2007 World Cup are concerned. Anthony Foley, two years Byrne’s junior, has been discarded while David Wallace, still comfortably in his 20s, remains in the cold irrespective of what he achieves in a Munster jersey. We keep hearing about all the Irishmen (Shane Jennings, Bob Casey, even Trevor Brennan and others) performing great deeds for their clubs in England and France. At least some could have been tried in the kind of sinecure that Saturday’s game represented and people like Byrne, Donncha O’Callaghan, Geordan Murphy and Gordon D’Arcy given a rest that might have proved beneficial to them.

Although I personally believe that Ronan O’Gara’s performance against Australia was a temporary glitch and that he will re-establish himself as Ireland’s primary No 10 over the coming weeks, we are desperately in need of back-up should the need arise. The point is well made considering that David Humphreys is seen our only alternative to O’Gara.

Barry Everitt has played a key role in pushing London Irish up to third in the English Premiership. He will still be the right side of 30 in 2007, so would it not have made sense to see what he could bring to the table? Tight head prop is an even bigger headache now that John Hayes may well be nearing the end of his career. Simon Best is hardly up to the task and unless somebody else emerges, Hayes may well keep the Number 3 jersey in the new year. Could that somebody be the powerfully-built Peter Bracken, rejected by Munster and Connacht but by all accounts revitalised by playing week in, week out, in the Premiership with Wasps.

Are we so rich in talent that these players and others can be ignored? I very much doubt it and certainly not on the evidence of what we’ve seen over the past three weeks. Admittedly, it’s a no-win situation when you take on third division teams like Romania so the cool reception to a 43-12 scoreline was as understandable as it was predictable.

How could you enthuse over the kind of tries so generously gifted to Neil Best, Johnny O’Connor, Geordan Murphy and Girvan Dempsey when the “tackling” was of the powder puff variety.

It was an awful match and no amount of wall papering will cover up the cracks. Nor should it be forgotten that the Romanians spent much of the second half swarming all over the Irish line. O’Sullivan regarded the fact that they were kept at bay as a positive, proof that Graham Steadman’s defensive strategy is paying a rich dividend. But when a team is as one-dimensional as Romania, it’s not rocket science to know what they are going to do and prepare accordingly.

When it was put to O’Sullivan that you could read too much into this kind of match, he replied enigmatically: “The same way you could read too much into the Australian or New Zealand matches, you could read too much into any game this autumn. We went into the game without 11 players available.

“In these situations, you see the real depth in our squad and there are some young players trying to find their feet. It was a fairly big baptism of fire over the past three weeks and especially against New Zealand and Australia.”

A fair point. Nobody can blame O’Sullivan for praying for the return of what he describes as “a full deck” for the Six Nations and especially Brian O’Driscoll, Paul O’Connell and Denis Hickie.

Still, if the glass is indeed half full for the coach, it can only have been because of how well Denis Leamy continues to perform in the back-row and the hope that Marcus Horan will continue to develop into a world-class loose head prop. Perhaps, Trimble will serve as decent back-up material for a fit again O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy.

But if Eddie is wrong, and the glass is half empty, he must be seriously concerned at how Shane Horgan was cruelly exposed for a lack of pace and Shane Byrne’s anonymity. They were by no means the only ones found wanting. Donncha O’Callaghan looks a player suffering for his hectic, non-stop schedule of the past 12 months.

O’Callaghan and Johnny O’Connor are crucial to our Six Nations prospects and if Shane Horgan fails to step up a few gears, it could be he, not Tommy Bowe, who makes way for Denis Hickie.

So ... a number of posers for Eddie O’Sullivan to ponder. He could well get the answer to a few of them by watching Munster and Ulster in opposition in an eagerly awaited Celtic League game at Musgrave Park on Saturday night. A lot of Munster men, especially, have a point to prove in that contest!