Gatland's gamble pays off as new deck comes up trumps

Normally the Irish management drift surreptitiously and without warning into the car park tent that is used for post-match press conferences. Moments before their entry on Saturday, though, a huge cheer reverberated outside the west stand. For the first time in a long time, their arrival had been announced in advance.

Like Ronan Tynan's performance, and the singing of the crowd throughout the day, it must have been sweet music to their ears. Yet on arrival they seemed almost deliberately subdued. After what had approached a vendetta against them, and Warren Gatland in particular, they weren't about to do a victory jig for us assembled hacks of all people.

The coach, primarily, and the manager had been placed under excessive pressure to achieve this one result after the most harrowing fortnight of their reign. Throughout the travail, though, they had never lost the players, there had been no self-serving breaking of ranks, and if Ireland did undoubtedly get the bounce of the ball on Saturday (having got little or none of it in Lens or Twickenham), it was about time in coming.

You wouldn't even have been completely surprised had Gatland and Lenihan taken that moment to announce they were heading off into the sunset, and in Gatland's case back to the more comforting environs of Galway where he has a supportive network.

By comparison, the national job is an altogether lonelier one, where knives are sharpened from a variety of angles. In the immediate aftermath of the Twickenham horror show, even the president of his employers, Billy Lavery, had gone no further than to say the IRFU would review all options after Saturday's game.

So, after the official press conference, Gatland, head slightly bowed, couldn't resist saying: "If the IRFU want me to resign I will resign, but the players gave me a vote of confidence both before the game and after the game."

Emotions had run high in the Irish camp from early on Saturday morning, when the five new caps were handed their jerseys for the first time in the Berkeley Court Hotel. Apparently Gatland lost it a bit like never before, thrusting the other jerseys individually at each player, asking them how much it was worth to them, would they deliver. To this angry cajoling, they promised they would this time. Some of them owed him one and they knew it.

"This was a must-win. Down 10 points after 20 minutes, we showed character," said Mick Galwey. "There was a lot said during the week, a lot of people put their heads on the line, and in fairness they did. When the players can stand up and look their fellow players in the eye after giving their best, that's the mark of a good player.

"Everybody was relieved after the game," he added. "Nobody was getting carried away. It wasn't like a winning dressingroom. There was a bit of relief there, but at the same time it was great. "There's a lot of bull being talked about Irish rugby, but we're not too far off the mark. We're not going to get carried away with it, but at the same time it's something to work on now."

Girvan Dempsey's broken nose will sideline him for Terenure this weekend but will not rule him out of the Italian game. The management must also wonder if Shane Horgan can become a stopgap winger as well as a real prospect at inside centre.

They'll check on Kevin Maggs's strained hamstring, but Justin Bishop is likely to be out for the rest of the campaign. But their biggest poser is the number 10 slot. Otherwise, you'd presume the team will stay intact.

No less than in defeat, the temptation to over-react now should also be resisted. It was only one game, one day, and, as Keith Wood stressed, we shouldn't install as ourselves as the next World Cup favourites. The Italian game now looms as a sizeable banana skin, for the azzurri were distinctly unflattered by a Cardiff scoreline which didn't reflect their three over-ruled tries.

"We've had one win, and I'm very happy for today, said Wood, "and I know there's an awful lot of hard days ahead and I don't want to lose the run of myself. I'd hate to see the country lose the run of itself on the back of this one performance.

"But it's brilliant for me, it's my first ever Five Nations/Six Nations win at home and it's a great day for a lot of guys. It's a great day for what it is."

To be bottled and savoured.