Green giants stun the wizards of Oz

IT was the result of their lives but the feeling in the Ireland World Cup squad as it decamped to the shores of Lake Taupo yesterday was that beating Australia was just the beginning of the journey.

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.