Ireland move up in the world

Ireland's form has been rewarded with a move up to third in the IRB world rankings, skipping over recent scalps South Africa and Australia in the process.

Sunday's record-equalling 21-6 victory over the Wallabies and the 32-15 crushing of the Springboks sees Ireland tucked neatly in behind European champions France and the currently peerless All Blacks.

At a media briefing at the SAS Radisson hotel yesterday morning, Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan and his management team exuded a confident air in borrowing the Fianna Fail re-election slogan of, a lot done, more to do. The mood in the camp appears to be at an all-time high.

First, O'Sullivan deflected the natural reward for felling two Southern Hemisphere heavyweights in successive weekends.

"People get a little giddy about the IRB rankings. They are a new system of rankings which change quite a bit - remember 10 years ago you had to win a bucket of games to move up one level, so they're not a bad thing.

"We have to treat them as a barometer of where we are as a team. Like any barometer, you cannot read it on one day and make massive conclusions. Look at it over a period of time to be fair, if being realistic look at Ireland over the last number of years and where we've consistently been in the top five or six in the world. It could be three (in the world) this morning but back to five if you lost a couple of Six Nations matches so it doesn't mean there's a catastrophe looming. Same if you go up a couple of levels doesn't mean suddenly you're going to win the World Cup."

Ireland's ranking has fluctuated from the low of seventh in March 2005, after defeat to Wales at the Millennium Stadium, to the present position. They were, and somewhat controversially, ranked third in the world in October 2003 only to slip out of the top five during the following year's Six Nations.

Since last February progress has been on a gradual upward curve. However, the IRB rating system is complicated. The "points exchange system" - which works out that sides take points off each other based on results with home advantage factored into the equation - saw Ireland go ahead of Australia by .05 of a point. But Australia will surpass Ireland with victory over Scotland in Murrayfield at the weekend as the Pacific Islands doesn't count as a fixture.

England remain seventh behind Argentina despite beating South Africa 23-21 at Twickenham on Saturday as the Pumas maintained their rich vein of form with a 23-16 victory over Italy in Rome. The Irish rise is the only change in the top 10 but New Zealand's dominance is displayed by the significant gap they have opened on the chasing pack.

Ireland coaches Niall O'Donovan, Graham Steadman, Mark Tainton and Brian McLaughlin could reflect on the many positives from Sunday but also dealt with some recurring deficiencies. "The scrum was probably the same problem we've run into over the last couple of years," said O'Donovan. "Seventy or 80 per cent right and then from 60 minutes on under pressure; three or four scrums led to a couple of penalties and we were wheeled off a couple.

"It's the ongoing problem of trying to hold concentration for the full 80 minutes. I've said this before but if we can get it 80 per cent right, there is no reason the other 20 per cent cannot be achieved. It's down to concentration not a pattern."

O'Sullivan will name an experimental line-up for the farewell to Lansdowne Road on Sunday (2.45pm) against the Pacific Islands. Brian O'Driscoll is expected to lead the team out for his 70th cap, but a scan yesterday confirmed that Marcus Horan has torn a calf muscle which will rule him out until January. It's a similar injury to the one he sustained last season but this time it's the left calf.

Ten players rejoined the squad yesterday with Stephen Ferris and Luke Fitzgerald potential wild-card call-ups to make their international debuts against the Pacific Islanders. Content with last Wednesday's A performance in a narrow defeat to Australia, O'Sullivan intimated all 32 players were in contention to start.