Green giants stun the wizards of Oz
Declan Kidney’s players produced the big performance they had insisted was within them to defeat the Tri-Nations champions at Eden Park on a momentous Saturday night that not just put Ireland in control of Pool C but blew the World Cup wide open.
Wins over Russia on Sunday in Rotorua and then Italy in Dunedin on October 2 will place the Irish into a quarter-final as group winners against the runners-up of Pool D, with Wales looking likely to occupy that berth, with the incentive of facing the winners of a likely quarter-final between England and France in the last four.
Such are the ramifications of the Irish victory, it probably condemns the Wallabies to a potential quarter-final against defending champions South Africa with New Zealand lying in wait in the semis, setting up a North versus South World Cup final.
Such tournament-defining significance can wait awhile for the Irish, though. A victory of this proportion in previous World Cups may have been greeted with uproarious celebrations by the players but this time around, it was left to the vast numbers of Irish among the 58,678 crowd who made Eden Park feel like a home game.
For players and coaches alike it was quickly back to business, marking their heroic performance as the benchmark to be maintained for the tournament.
Gordon D’Arcy had gone into the game with his form in doubt and his selection at inside centre in question but like the rest of the Ireland team following a disappointing win first time out against the US, he found the resolve to increase the intensity to combat a fancied Australian side.
“What we’ve done now is we’ve gone to knockout rugby so every game from here on in is more important,” D’Arcy said. “So we can’t afford to slip up against one of these two teams or Australia will come straight back in ahead of us. We’ve got to look to build on us. That was a massive performance but that now becomes the standard.
“The good teams don’t dip below that so the onus is on us to back it up week after week after week.
“Now we can kick on. We’ve got Russia next, that will be a different set of challenges so we’ve just got to back it up.
“There were a lot of words this week and we backed it up with a physical performance, we backed our words with actions. There’ll probably be a lot less talking this week and more onus on the action of doing what we do best.”
D’Arcy was today due to undergo a scan on a strained hamstring which forced him out of the action after 50 minutes, with Paul O’Connell set for the same procedure for a similar problem, although team manager Paul McNaughton said yesterday that neither player’s issues were considered serious.
The likelihood of either player being given a run out this weekend would have been slim as Kidney looks set to rest his frontline players ahead of the final pool clash against the Italians.
They have earned their rest after such an intense six-day build-up to the Wallabies clash and a massive effort to not just defeat Robbie Deans’ side but keep his previously swashbuckling backline tryless.
Australia failed to cope with the late withdrawals of loose forward David Pocock and hooker Stephen Moore to a bad back and nausea respectively. The nausea was of a different kind for their pack-mates left to cope with a ferocious Irish forward effort, for which Cian Healy was rewarded with a man of the match award.
The Irish scrum was dominant throughout against an Australian pack that had seen off the All Blacks just last month, and the back row had a similar impact at the breakdown with second rows O’Connell and Donncha O’Callaghan also putting in big shifts. The defence kept the Australian backline wrapped up all night and there was no better example of that than when Stephen Ferris picked up the ball and carried it 10 metres into the Wallabies 22, with their scrum-half Will Genia still attached.
Throughout, Ireland kept notching points, Sexton firing a penalty and a drop goal in the first half, matched by James O’Connor for a 6-6 half-time scoreline. Australia would score no more but Ireland kept building the lead, Sexton adding another penalty before switching to inside centre as Ronan O’Gara replaced the injured D’Arcy and assumed the kicking duties after the starting fly-half had struck the uprights for this third miss in six attempts at goal. O’Gara added another couple as Ireland refused to drop the pace they set from the first whistle.
Australia struggled under the high ball, were rattled at the breakdown and could find no way through the Irish defensive line yet this was far from a complete Ireland performance.
Sexton had another below-par game with the boot, the lineout was not firing on all cylinders and there were still a frustrating level of handling errors and penalties conceded. The Wallabies, though, outscored them on both.
“We didn’t play particularly well today,” forwards coach Gert Smal said. “There were certain patches where we didn’t play well and I think we can still improve. But the players know what they’ve got in them, they know what they achieved before and they proved it again tonight.
“This game is finished now and the next game is the most important.”
Onwards and upwards, then, for the journey is only just getting underway.
IRELAND: R Kearney (A Trimble, 75); T Bowe, B O’Driscoll – captain (A Trimble, 59-62), G D’Arcy (R O’Gara, 50), K Earls; J Sexton, E Reddan (C Murray, 58); C Healy, R Best, M Ross (T Court, 76); D O’Callaghan, P O’Connell; S Ferris, S O’Brien, J Heaslip.
Replacements not used: S Cronin, D Ryan, D Leamy.
AUSTRALIA: K Beale; J O’Connor, A Fainga’a (D Mitchell, 75), P McCabe, A Ashley-Cooper; Q Cooper, W Genia ; S Kepu, T Polota-Nau, B Alexander (J Slipper, 61); D Vickerman (R Simmons, 62), J Horwill – captain; R Elsom (W Palu, 71), B McCalman, R Samo (S Higginbotham, 75).
Replacements not used: S Fainga’a, L Burgess.
Referee: Bryce Lawrence (New Zealand).
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