Under-fire Jones and Gregan get breathing space

THEY may have won pulling up but Australia left the majority of the Lansdowne Road crowd feeling distinctly underwhelmed.

To be fair, nothing less than a virtuoso performance was going to top off the events of the previous seven days when the All Blacks swaggered confidently on to the stage.

The arrival of Graham Henry’s men was the cue for the last whiff of gunpowder on the Brian O’Driscoll affair but they still managed to melt hearts in Ramelton before destroying their hosts with a display of breathtaking power, precision and pace.

Australia arrived with more modest ambitions, a seven-test losing streak chipping away at their self-belief. This was business. Get in. Get out. Job done.

“It’s just a nice feeling to win a Test match,” said captain George Gregan. “They’re hard to win so the guys will enjoy that feeling, especially at Lansdowne Road. It’s always tough to play Ireland here. We realised we were in a tough Test match after 40 minutes. The pleasing aspect was the way we started that second half, it really brought us back into the game.”

If Eddie Jones survives the next few months - and it will take more than one win over a depleted Ireland side to make that happen - then he is sure to look back on the half-time period in Saturday’s game as the moment the wolves began retreating from his door.

The Wallabies manager had some harsh words for his boys , as did Gregan, whose position is equally wobbly despite 12 years of unstinting service.

“I was a bit disappointed with the way I played in the first half,” explained man of the match Chris Latham. “We had a bit of a chat at half-time to go out there and make a difference and make sure that, collectively, we stayed on a high. We started really positively in the second half and we just wanted to keep that going.”

Latham’s try was the clincher, but it did more than win a match. By jinking past David Humphreys and bamboozling Geordan Murphy on his dazzling run to the line, Latham, in the space of a few seconds, also emphasised the gulf in class.

With Murphy, one of Ireland’s few flair players, hitting the fifth row of the West Stand with a pass that should have sent Tommy Bowe in for a try minutes before the break, the contrast was starkly presented.

“I supposed I’d learnt a little bit from the way we’d run in the first-half,” said the Queensland Reds full-back. “We’d done our homework and that paid off. It was just good to be able to convert some points from that sort of field position and get on the front foot.”

Latham’s story is one worth exploring amid all the woe surrounding the inability of Ireland’s players to ooze such class with ball in hand.

Born in the backwater of Narrabri, Latham immersed himself in soccer as a kid and his first brush with rugby was at 18 - five years later he was making his Test debut against France.

He has also been Australian Super 12 Player of the Year for the past three seasons so, while we can lament the lack of a kindergarten rugby culture here in Ireland, it certainly doesn’t need to be an albatross around our necks either.