Just 6 out of 10 for effort

IRELAND’S World Cup squad begin the long trek home today fully realising that the international careers of several had come to an end and the future for a few others hang in the balance.

Everybody will have their own opinion as to whether it was a good World Cup campaign for Ireland. It certainly was off the field where the players and management conducted themselves superbly in just about every possible way and earned many well merited compliments in this regard. On the pitch, though, they hardly set the world alight.

They achieved their anticipated early victories over Romania and Namibia without undue difficulty but also without any great distinction and then had the nation sitting on the edge of its seats before finally scraping a single point win over Argentina in the big one. That meant qualification for the quarter-finals from what Eddie O'Sullivan regularly referred to as the 'pool of death' and the relaxation of pressure helped them to produce easily their best performance of the tournament.

With all of that behind them, we hoped for a true 'up and at 'em' 80 minutes against France in the quarter-finals. This was a team we had beaten in three of the previous four matches but from the word go Ireland were dead on their feet whereas France came to play. In a way, curiously like the manner in which Leinster failed to raise a gallop in last year's Heineken European Cup semi-final against so-called outsiders Perpignan.

As O'Sullivan observed: "They strangled us, they out-muscled us, they outplayed us."

His opposite number, Bernard Laporte, was pleased with the first 50 minutes his side produced. Little wonder. They led 37-0 after 47 minutes. But he wasn't happy with the final half hour when he accepted his men were already thinking of the semi-finals. God only knows what might have happened had they concentrated for the full 80 minutes.

So, what marks out of 10 would you give the Irish for their World Cup efforts? Should three wins (two of them against third world rugby nations) and two defeats entitle them to more than six? I don't think so. The coach claimed he was proud of his side and that the people back home would also feel like that. I wonder. If we settle for this, and point to our limited playing resources as an explanation, I doubt if we will ever emerge as a true world force. Much play is being made of the fact that we have won 18 of our last 24 internationals. But the list of conquests is mainly lightweight with only Australia, France and Argentina ranked as serious opposition. It's a decent run but it also includes some serious thrashings.

There are few able to reassess a situation better than O'Sullivan. He will spend sleepless nights thinking about that awful start in Melbourne. He will make due allowance for the wicked bounce that allowed Olivier Magne over for that third minute match defining try but will also appreciate that the problems go a lot deeper than that. He will also, no doubt, toss around in his mind whether the side he picked to start the French game was the right one and whether persevering with all of them for 47 minutes at which point, as we have seen, they were 37-0 down was the correct policy.

One or two men were never going to stop the French in this mood but I was amazed when the coach opted to begin a match of this importance without Anthony Foley to be found anywhere in the 22. I wrote so in the build-up to the game, so this is not a case of hindsight. Victor Costello just doesn't have the qualities that Foley has been bringing to this Irish team for a great many years. To play him before Foley was a mistake.

Furthermore, I was more than a little surprised to see others trot out on the pitch for the second half. It could be argued that we 'won' that period of the game by 21-16 on the scoreboard but it is also fair to say that this happened only after O'Sullivan rang the changes. With the front-row in disarray and no sign of life in the loose, I would have brought in Marcus Horan for the struggling Reggie Corrigan at loose head, who Corrigan was pinged on several occasions by referee Jonathan Kaplan for slipping his bind and couldn't cope with Sylvain Marconnet.

This was probably Paul O'Connell's least effective 80 minutes of the tournament, probably because the team as a whole was on the backfoot, and he was constantly in trouble with Kaplan. However, only he and Keith Wood of the forwards showed the kind of passion so essential in an Irish team and there was little forthcoming from Malcolm O'Kelly, who saw the match pass him by. Yet Donnacha O'Callaghan was allowed to warm the bench for the full eighty minutes.

As for the back-row, it didn't need a rugby genius to know that the Easterby-th Gleeson-Victor Costello axis had no chance against the brilliant and ruthless trio of Serge Betsen, Olivier Magne and Imanol Harinordoquy. And so it proved. The Irish were blown out of it and again you are left to wonder if this was the best combination available, the situation not helped by the fact that Alan Quinlan was back home because of injury and David Wallace was not a consideration having been controversially omitted from the squad in the first place.

With the Six Nations in mind, O'Sullivan readily acknowledged that he would be looking at players at home who didn't go to Australia at all. The pack isn't the only area where he will hope to see the Heineken European Cup throw up some fresh talent. It's unlikely that Denis Hickie or Geordan Murphy will be available for the Six Nations and that leaves problems on the wing and full-back. The David Humphreys-Ronan O'Gara saga rolls on unabated after the World Cup while there remains no apparent standby for scrum-half Peter Stringer.

Opportunity now beckons for some who just made up the numbers out here. Frankie Sheahan, 27, has years to spare over Shane Byrne, 32, and is favourite to take over from Wood at number two. Horan for Corrigan at three is an obvious option with O'Callaghan and Leo Cullen sure to challenge in the second-row. Quinlan will be in the hunt in the back-row and Wallace will want to prove a point. I hope Connacht's splendid number eight/flanker John O'Sullivan and Leinster number eight Des Dillon are brought into the reckoning. There are forward options but not too many behind, especially with the long term injuries to Murphy and Hickie.

A 6 out of 10 mark for Ireland's World Cup? About right.