Australia 22 Ireland 15:Opportunity knocked for a host of individuals and collectively as the Wallabies were there for the taking in Bribane today, but an under-strength Ireland, drained at the end of their marathon 44-week season, couldn't take their chances despite huge positive intent.
Ultimately, a couple of costly mistakes undid them, as Luke Burgess picked off a soft intercept try off a laboured 8-9 blindside move from a scrum and then, in injury time, Shane Jennings and Niall Ronan let Quade Coooper slip through for a try.
The line-out and scrum both creaked early on but regrouped pretty well, and the defensive effort was enormous and much better than before. Ireland also looked dangerous on a couple of occasions when they went wide, but Tommy Bowe especially and Andrew Trimble remained under-used and Australia read the trademark Jonathan Sexton wraparound move pretty well.
Ireland also sought to counter-attack more, with Geordan Murphy bringing those around him into play when he came on, and overall, in terms of World Cup preparation, this will have been an invaluable if tiring trip, and a fruitless one purely in terms of results.
In truth, it was an error-strewn, stop-start match which wasn’t helped by referee Bryce Lawrence. Though pedantic. he was nothing if not consistent, particularly harsh on players not retreating in front of the kicker and in rigidly applying the hindmost foot offside line; both of which are utterly in accordance with the IRB directives since the beginning of the year. Given these were applied by southern hemisphere referees more strictly in the Super 14, it was surprising that the Wallabies initially incurred his displeasure more often.
This was far from a vintage Australian line-up. A couple of little segments early in the second-half summed them up. When Burgess kicked up the blind side off a ruck, his chasers were caught flat-footed, and though Rob Kearney failed to gather and then made a hash of his kick, off the next recycle, Ma’afu and the scrum-half’s target runners had over-run the ball. Cue the forward pass.
After conceding 10 and 15 unanswered points in the opening 15 minutes of their previous tour games, both Declan Kidney and Brian O’Driscoll had publicly declared the importance of a good start, and this time they did thanks in large measure to the assured right boot of Sexton.
Although Bowe missed Burgess’ box kick from the kick-off, Tomas O’Leary gathered and Ireland patiently went through six phases, the last by Sexton on his favoured wrap around, to draw the offside. Sexton duly opened the scoring.
Bizarrely, Robbie Deans had decided to mix his kickers, with the left-footed Matt Giteau kicking from the right and the right-footed Quade Cooper taking over on the left-hand side. When Ireland appeared to have conceded a soft penalty for offside moments later, better followed when Matt Giteau continued his horrors of the week before against England - when he missed four kicks, including a proverbial sitter to win the game - by stroking a straight-ish 35 metre penalty wide.
Furthermore, when Ben Daly and Ma’afu didn’t retreat from in front of the kicker after Adam Ashley-Cooper returned Sexton’s punt up the middle, the Irish out-half doubled the lead.
Almost a dozen minutes had passed before O’Driscoll touched the ball, whereupon, with his first touch he was penalised for deliberately palming the ball into touch after the Wallabies had created numbers on the blind side. From the left, this time Cooper bisected the posts to open Australia’s account.
Worse followed for Ireland when, having been reprieved by Lawrence spotting Cooper’s slight knock-on as Rob Horne picked off a risky infield pass by O’Leary, Burgess read Chris Henry’s telegraphed 8-9 blindside move off a rickety Irish scrum and scored a 35 metre intercept try.
However, Cooper hit the post with the conversion. Sexotn restored the lead when Richard Brown was penalised for not releasing and then Cooper relieved more pressure by coming in from the side.
Niall Ronan gathered the resultant line-out well as an emergency tail-of-the-line option, and O’Driscoll - though standing flat - straightened through off Paddy Wallace’s pass as Australian defenders were fooled by the wraparound runners. Alas, he failed to pick out Bowe’s switch inside (although it's always easier to spot these things from the press box) and instead passed wide to Trimble. Drew Mitchell was at least penalised pushing Trimble after tackling him into touch, and Sexton added to the lead.
Cooper and Sexton exchanged further penalties - Australia not retreating from in front of the kick, Jennings for coming in from the side - before calamity struck Ireland again. With the hooter gone, Australia were going through the phases when Jennings missed his tackle on Cooper and the outhalf scooted in. Again, he hit the post with the conversion.
Ireland will feel they should have gone in ahead, having butchered one well-created try-scoring opportunity while coughing up two soft ones at the other end, but against that the Wallabies had left seven points behind through their kickers.
But try as they might, Ireland were running on empty thereafter. Though their hearts were willing, their legs weakened. Kurtley Beale, on at half-time for Horne, butchered a try after Giteau and Coooper had swapped playmaking roles to create space out wide, though compensation came by way of a tap-over penalty by Giteau.
A typically defiant and brave piece of last-man standing by O’Leary protected the Irish try line when the Wallabies went through their patterns after David Pocock robbed the ball from Donncha O’Callaghan, and the penalty that followed against Jennings for not releasing after the tackle weren’t the worse three points to concede.
The tackle count mounted, and though Ireland occasionally ventured up field the effort took its toll. Following one lung-sapping line-out drive, Mick O'Driscoll knocked-on, but it didn't subdue the singing of The Fields of Athenry
behind the Wallabies’ goal.
A better team than these Wallabies would actually have delivered a more clinical knock-out blow.
Scoring sequence: 3 minsSexton pen 0-3; 10 minsSexton pen 0-6; 13 minsCooper pen 3-6; 18 minsBurgess try 8-6; 22 minsSexton pen 8-9; 30 minsSexton pen 8-12; 34 minsCooper pen 11-12; 36 minsSexton pen 11-15; 40 (+1 min)Cooper try 16-15; half-time16-15; 52 minsGiteau pen 19-15; 61 minsGiteau pen 22-15.
Australia:J O'Connor (Western Force); D Mitchell (NSW Waratahs), R Horne (NSW Waratahs), M Giteau (ACT Brumbies), A Ashley-Cooper (ACT Brumbies); Q Cooper (Queensland Reds), L Burgess (NSW Waratahs); B Daley (Queensland Reds), S Faingaa (Queensland Reds), S Ma'afu (ACT Brumbies), D Mumm (NSW Waratahs), M Chisholm (ACT Brumbies), R Elsom (ACT Brumbies, capt), D Pocock (Western Force), R Brown (Western Force).
Replacements:K Beale (NSW Waratahs) for Horne (half-time). J Slipper (Queensland Reds) for Daley (54 mins). Not used:H Edmonds (Brumbies), M Chapman (ACT Brumbies) M Hodgson (Western Force), J Valentine (ACT Brumbies), B Barnes (NSW Waratahs),
Ireland:R Kearney (UCD/Leinster); T Bowe (Ospreys), B O'Driscoll (UCD/Leinster, Capt), P Wallace (Ballymena/Ulster), A Trimble (Ballymena/Ulster); J Sexton (St.Mary's College/Leinster), T O'Leary (Dolphin/Munster); C Healy (Clontarf/Leinster), S Cronin (Buccaneers/Connacht), T Buckley (Shannon/Munster); D O'Callaghan (Cork Constitution/Munster), M O'Driscoll (Cork Constitution/Munster); N Ronan (Shannon/Munster), S Jennings (St.Mary's College/Leinster), C Henry (Ballymena/Ulster).
Replacements:T Court (Malone/Ulster) for Buckley (half-time), G Murphy (Leicester) for Kearney (53 mins), D Tuohy (Ballymena/Ulster) for O'Callaghan (53-54 mins) and for O'Driscoll (70 mins), R Ruddock (UCD/Leinster) for Henry (69 mins), D Varley (Garryowen/Munster) for Cronin (70 mins). Not used:E Reddan (Lansdowne/Leinster), R O'Gara (Cork Constitution/Munster).
Referee:Bryce Lawrence (New Zealand).