Exhausted Irish had no gas left in the tank

THREE gruelling battles in consecutive weeks took their toll as Ireland capitulated to a stronger Australian side at Subiaco Oval, Perth, on Saturday.

It was a bridge too far for Ireland, as they desperately sought to finish their southern hemisphere campaign on a high note. The team battled hard, but paid the price for a succession of mistakes and an inability to win decent first phase possession. Ireland’s line out has been acclaimed as one of the best in the world, but Nathan Sharpe destroyed them.

Australia, having recovered from one of the worst losing sequences in their history, have now strung together three successive wins and look well capable of mounting a serious Tri Nations Championship challenge.

For Ireland, it’s back to the drawing board; they’re good, but just not good enough, and their limited resources — a lack of quality players on the bench — was well exposed.

Irish coach Eddie O’Sullivan threw everything into these last few weeks in New Zealand and Australia; his first choice selection stayed standing through three physically demanding games, but in the end the team simply ran out of steam.

Irish captain Brian O’Driscoll admitted as much.

“I think it came down to exhaustion in the end, certainly when we conceded two sucker-punch tries, but we didn’t help ourselves,” O’Driscoll said. “We made too many mistakes and some of them were caused by tiredness. We can’t complain, because the better side won.”

Ireland, after trailing by eight points at the break, hit a purple patch early in the second half, rattling the Wallabies and scorching into the lead.

Then, Ireland fell asleep again, conceded two tries and lost their way. Midway through the second half the team were ten points adrift; the game was effectively over and, with fatigue setting in, they succumbed to a physically superior Australian side.

Ireland will be disappointed with their display at the line out; the jury is out on the effectiveness of their scrum, but at least they competed favourably at the breakdown. George Smith was conspicuous by his absence in this area, and David Wallace deserves huge credit for that.

Ireland played well only in patches — Ronan O’Gara created and scored the try to re-launch Ireland’s the team’s flagging challenge; Gordon D’Arcy had a few notable darts; but O’Driscoll was well marshalled and, as Ireland pursued a running game, there was often confusion rather than organisation in the ranks.

Ireland’s line out problems stemmed from the fact Australia had four target players, that Jerry Flannery was surprisingly inaccurate and that Australia had done their homework by competing vigorously on Ireland’s throws.

Ireland’s worst patch was in a 10-minute period during the third quarter when they coughed up possession on three of their own throws — that was scarily strange, and it helped make a difference to the outcome.

For the third time on tour, Ireland fell behind early. They held out until the 13th minute, before Stirling Mortlock kicked a penalty. Australia stretched that lead with a top quality try after 21 minutes, but Ireland struck back quickly when O’Gara kicked a penalty.

Australia pushed the lead out to eight points with a further penalty from Mortlock, and Ireland couldn’t complain after a listless first half performance.

It got better after the break when Ireland went in for two well worked tries. O’Gara got the first when he was on the end of a pass from Wallace, after initially creating the chance with a beautiful chip for Shane Horgan. O’Gara missed the conversion, but did add the points to the second when Neil Best finished off a counter-attack to give Ireland the lead.

Yet, Australia were back in front when Mark Gerrard showed both Best and John Hayes a clean pair of heels. Mortlock converted and also added the points to a remarkable try from loose head prop Greg Holmes to make it 25-15.

It got worse in the closing minutes when George Gregan went in, and then Cameron Shepherd got in for a try that Mortlock converted.

Bodies broken and spirits crushed, Ireland just didn’t have any gas left in the tank.

AUSTRALIA: C Latham, M Gerrard, S Mortlock, M Rogers, L Tuqiri, S Larkham, G Gregan, G Holmes, T McIsaac, N Sharpe, D Vickerman, M Chisholm, R Elsom, G Smith.

Replacements: C Rathbone for Rogers (31st, injured), J Paul for McIsaac (53), A Baxter for Shepherdson (53), C Shepherd for Rathbone (70, injured), W Palu for Elsom (72), P Waugh for Chisholm (75), S Cordingly for Gregan (75).

IRELAND: G Dempsey, S Horgan, B O’Driscoll (captain), G D’Arcy, A Trimble, R O’Gara, P Stringer, M Horan, J Flannery, J Hayes, D O’Callaghan, P O’Connell, N Best, D Leamy, D Wallace.

Replacements: B Young for M Horan (61), M O’Driscoll for Best (61), G Murphy for D’Arcy (68, injured), K Gleeson for Wallace (68), R Best for Flannery (72), I Boss for Stringer (72), J Staunton for Trimble (79, injured).

Referee: K Deaker (New Zealand).