WATCHING Saturday's latest Irish Permanent international, the thought occurred that there is something very permanent about Irish rugby indeed.

Raising the standard of play and with it the spirit of Lansdowne Road against the Australians after the debacle at home to Western Samoa was hardly surprising, par for the course really.

That it was done with something of a good old-fashioned, back-to-basics performance made Saturday seem almost like a step back in time. The Irish half-backs kicked to the corners, at times brilliantly, on a dark, windy and cold afternoon and pummelled away at the Australian line almost exclusively through the pack and inside runners.

Nearing the hour, the fired-up Irish pack stole Australian ruck ball inside their own 22 and Stephen McIvor cleared to touch. Cue to the day's loudest guttural roar. A timely injury stoppage gave vent to a full-throated Molly Malone. Lansdowne Road hasn't shook like this for some time.

In almost every way then, just like the old days. This was a return to rugby before this season's rule amendments. It was even reminiscent of the Wallabies' great escape in the World Cup quarter-final of 1991. Then too, out-half Ralph Keyes played not much differently to Paul Burke on Saturday. Then too, it will be remembered Ireland went on to win the wooden spoon.

After Jim Staples departed from the fray, the thought occurred that he and another observer, his great mate Simon Geoghegan, wouldn't have received much more in the way of attacking ball had they been on the pitch. Staples is one of the best attacking full-backs we've ever had, perhaps the best, but as with Tony O'Reilly and others, his best rugby will not be seen in an Irish shirt.

For all the pack's fire and brimstone, the brilliance of Jeremy Davidson, Keith Wood and the back-row, the Wallabies' defence was never absorbed sufficiently to release the outside backs one on one, never mind in space or on the overlap.

Arguably then, the most salient question of a subdued press conference centred on the inability thus far in two games to create openings from a considerable amount of possession. "Is that a worry?" Ireland manager Pat Whelan was asked.

"I think you missed the early part of the press conference. We were over the line twice in fact in the first half. David Corkery was over on two occasions and Stephen McIvor was stopped a yard from the line. I consider them to be chances," he responded.

That was hardly the point, and asked to respond to the question in general - "in an overall sense, putting guys into space" - Whelan couldn't resist another little dig: "I'd say space over the line in the first instance is the space we want to be. We were over the line twice, so that's the space we were looking for," he repeated.

"But to go back to the general trend of your question, there are two aspects to it. You have to get into situations where you can score. We did get into those situations in the first half when we had the wind with us, and then you have to put the scores away. We didn't put them away, that's the problem we have to face up to and that's the area that we'll work on.

Ireland coach Murray Kidd just sat there, very subdued.

But after the press conference, Kidd needed no encouragement to return to the theme that Whelan had dealt with earlier. "Somebody made the comment about us not creating many openings but the Australians didn't either apart from the one at the end which came off our mistake. Defensively they were very impressive in blocking those holes."

A step back in time? "Conditions were a lot harder out there than we probably appreciate sitting in the stand," he said in mitigation. "It was very cold to try and move the ball and there was a very strong wind. Our backs were talking about just shaking out there." You can hear old Irish wingers singing in unison, same as it ever was.

"The new games we've been seeing have been played in semi-summer conditions. From now on we might see some winter rugby. Ideally we want to be able to play in all types of conditions."

As with the Western Samoan game, it took the visitors to put our rugby into some sort of perspective. Australian coach Greg Smith said: "A lot of the way games are played depends on the flow in the game and we found over here that a lot of the methods and strategies are probably relevant to the northern hemisphere rather than the kind of strategies we would use playing in our own country or playing in the southern hemisphere.

"I mean you're talking about a fairly complex thing here. You're talking about the way referees interpret the game; you're talking about ground conditions, although the ground conditions out there today were excellent; ground conditions can slow a game down. You're talking about the feasibility of the rucking game, which doesn't seem to be very feasible in the northern hemisphere. As soon as people start to use their feet, you cringe because you think he's going to be penalised for it.

"I mean once you take the rucking game out of the game, it's very hard to play a fast game because the ball was just slow ball. Admittedly the Scots played a very good game against us, in terms of that. Generally speaking we're quite happy with the way we re going along but if we move back across into our own hemisphere now we'd certainly play the game differently."