Weary Ireland’s end of season woe

OUT on their feet and with their trench in danger of being overrun at the Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night, Ireland’s pack looked to the sidelines for the arrival of reinforcements.

But, with 31 years of history on the line, all that Declan Kidney could call upon were rookies, untried untested, and unable to reverse the momentum. It was so different to last season when the Ireland coach ended a drought of over double that length, Ireland’s Grand Slam success of 2009 built upon the shoulders of a pack and team largely consisting of veterans.

A heroic defensive effort had just about kept Ireland within touching distance of Australia, yet after a marathon campaign, the final 40 minutes of the season were just too much for some. Kidney would have loved to have called upon his dogs of war. Instead it was the pups, Rhys Ruddock and Damian Varley winning first caps in Brisbane, Dan Tuohy a second.

“We changed things and put as many fresh legs on the pitch as we could. You’re trying not to break the continuity of it either because you’re hoping for your good patch to come,” said Kidney, who admitted his side looked jaded by game’s end.

“Yeah, in the last 20 minutes but when you’ve defended for that long...it’s amazing the way everyone will always remember the last 20 minutes of a game. But we probably looked a little bit weary.

“We just didn’t have that good patch. We didn’t have a sustained period of pressure on them. They scored two tries, we didn’t score one. That’s why we lost.”

The ex-pats thronged the Suncorp Stadium and Ireland repaid them with a solid if unspectacular beginning. In truth it was two first-half errors that sowed the seed for the difficult second half.

Ronan O’Gara carried his 99 caps to the bench in Brisbane but he never looked like becoming a centurion here with Jonathan Sexton in stellar form. His five first-half penalties brought his tour record to 14 successful kicks from 15 attempts.

Conversion rates like that are a thing of the past for the Wallabies it seems with their kicking platoon of Matt Giteau and Quade Cooper unable to inspire confidence in even the most optimistic Wallaby fan.

Sexton’s 15 points should have given Ireland a healthy half-time lead but, after Tomas O’Leary had got away with one sloppy inception, Chris Henry’s tardiness soon after was unforgiveable, gifting Australian scrum-half Luke Burgess the game’s first try.

Equally galling was Ireland’s inability to at least get to the break with a four-point advantage, Cooper’s predicable kangaroo hop and skip fooling Shane Jennings and Niall Ronan. Deans’ side hardly merited the lead, but they gladly accepted it and didn’t give it up for the remainder of the contest.

“We’ll be disappointed by the nature of the two tries were conceded but the defensive effort overall was a lot stronger,” said Kidney. “The two tries were – well one’s a mistake and the second one our gaps were just too big. That’s how we’ve been punished. We’ve a lot of fellas who are hurting right now and that’s probably good. We all are.

“I would hope that in the long run we’ll be the better for it. But for the time being, every time you go out and represent your country you want to do the best you can and that’s why we’ll be disappointed. It was a game that was possibly there and it got away from us.”

But it never got too far away from them, due to the dual factors of Ireland’s much-improved defence and the Wallaby attacking force that had been billed as razor sharp but in truth was woefully blunt.

The only true incision came after the break came on the hour when Adam Ashley-Cooper pinned his ears back, cut in from his wing and raced for the whitewash.

Tomas O’Leary’s last ditch tackle was nothing short of heroic but in the ensuing ruck Jennings was again punished and Matt Giteau’s penalty was the last score of a contest that petered out, and for the last 20 descended into a flurry of sloppy errors and poor decisions.

The next time the two sides meet will be in Auckland in 14 months’ time at the game’s global get-together. Both coaches know much will have to change if they are to make an impact.

AUSTRALIA: J O’Connor; D Mitchell, R Horne, M Giteau, A Ashley-Cooper; Q Cooper, L Burgess; B Daley, S Faingaa, S Ma’afu, D Mumm, M Chisholm, R Elsom (capt), D Pocock, R Brown.

Replacements: J Slipper for Daley (54); K Beale on for Horne (41).

IRELAND: R Kearney; T Bowe, B O’Driscoll (capt), P Wallace, A Trimble; J Sexton, T O’Leary; C Healy, S Cronin, T Buckley; D O’Callaghan, M O’Driscoll; N Ronan, S Jennings, C Henry

Replacements: D Varley for Cronin (70); T Court for Buckley (41); D Tuohy for O’Callaghan (53-55, blood) for M O’Driscoll (70); R Ruddock for Henry (69); Geordan Murphy for Kearney (53).

Referee: Bryce Lawrence (NZ)

Att: 45,498.