Ireland 55 Canada 0:AS THE Eddie O'Sullivan reign began with a 54-10 drubbing of a hapless Welsh team in February 2002, so the Declan Kidney era kicked off with a fairly routine 55-0. Save for the appalling weather and the opposition wearing red, though, the similarities more or less ended there.

In keeping with recent four-year cycles, the so-called minnows of the global game, outside of World Cup time, simply cannot compete with their heavyweight brethren - even if, geographically at least, putting Canada and Ireland in those brackets seems odd. At World Cup time, the third tier nations are at least coming to the conclusion of four-year cycles themselves and usually have the same amount of time in camp.

But, coming in more or less cold into the November window, the Canucks were no Georgia or Namibia. Big, beefy and strong maybe, but technically their skills were woeful. They provided no more than a training exercise for Les Kiss's defensive system, managing just one line break in 80 minutes.

Their own defensive organisation was lamentable, as evidenced by Ireland's fourth try just past the half-hour mark. The Canadians had a full minute to rectify an unbalanced defensive line, over-manned to the right, grossly under-manned to the left, as Eoin Reddan attempted to excavate ruck ball under the Canadian sticks before Ireland were awarded a penalty. Reddan had a good long look to his right before deciding to lob a kick crossfield - not especially accurately - which obliged Keith Earls to swivel back, gather and pass to Rob Kearney, who still had ample time to surf over the line.

In truth, you wouldn't even see such a score in a training session, for which this was ultimately only marginally more worthwhile.

Still, by dint of it being a first run-out under a new regime it was better than if Ireland went in cold to face the All Blacks next Saturday, though quite what the management can learn from this exercise, individually or collectively, is a moot point.

The conditions were, no doubt, fairly alien to the Canadians, and they may benefit even more when they move on to play Wales and Scotland over the next two weeks.

For example, the 20-year-old replacement outhalf Matt Evans looked something of a prospect in his debut in the last quarter - certainly compared to Ander Munro.

Then again, on a drier track you wouldn't be surprised if they shipped a bigger beating.

Had that been the case here, one imagines Ireland might have comfortably have put on 80 or 100 points. Even on this sodden track Ireland were comfortably scoring at a point a minute until surfs of rain cascaded down off the stand by the end of the first quarter.

They also lost their way in the third quarter amid a surfeit of errors, compounded by the plan to empty the bench before the hour mark. Such was the rejigging that only Donncha O'Callaghan, the flankers and Luke Fitzgerald finished the match in the positions they started - surely an Irish record of sorts.

Another landmark contender was Keith Earls scoring a try with his first touch of his first Test within two minutes and 25 seconds of the kick-off. He did no more than take a typically good, straight line on to a rare enough example of crisp, accurate passing from Brian O'Driscoll and Luke Fitzgerald, and then showed his strength in contact. But it was a typically irreverent, nerveless introduction to Test rugby for the self-assured 21-year-old who was, it is worth remembering, making only his seventh representative start and only his sixth game of note at fullback.

The pack's cohesiveness and the set-pieces, for what it was worth, also looked slick, with some impressive lineout variations. But with that Prince of Thieves, Richie McCaw, coming to town next week, they'll be looking to work on clearing out in training this week.

No one put himself about to more telling effect than Stephen Ferris, with plenty of lineout takes, ball carries, thunderous hits and selfless work, as evidenced when he drove over Jamie Heaslip - who was also impressive in the open out wide - for his first Test try.

Any time Ireland put together a few phases or kept the ball in play, opportunities or tries usually followed, as when Kearney and Earls interchanged positions in the first half and the former ended one of those bouts of aerial ping-pong that now adorn the modern game to put together some continuity in the build-up to his try.

That said, pacy, spin passes looked extremely difficult, and it was striking how often passes were lobbed. Partly because of this, the obvious threat of the outside three was never fully exploited. Tommy Bowe looked every bit the ever-improving player he is, making telling contributions to four of the tries and scoring two with his clever, heads-up rugby.

Indeed, one of the few disappointing aspects of the performances was the number of times Bowe, especially, and others took the ball into contact and sought to make an offload, only for the absence of support to oblige him to reluctantly seek the sanctity of the deck. With broken play or counter-attacks now offering such a rich reservoir of potential to unlock defences, that too is something for the new brains trust to put some work into this week.

SCORING SEQUENCE: 3: Earls try, O'Gara con 7-0; 8: O'Gara pen 10-0; 13: Kearney try, O'Gara con 17-0; 28: Heaslip try, O'Gara con 24-0; 31: Kearney try, O'Gara con 31-0; 40: Bowe try, O'Gara con 38-0 (half-time 38-0); 63: D Wallace try, P Wallace con 45-0; 73: Quinlan try 50-0; 80: Bowe try 55-0.

IRELAND: K Earls (Munster); T Bowe (Ospreys), B O'Driscoll (Leinster), L Fitzgerald (Leinster), R Kearney (Leinster); R O'Gara (Munster), E Reddan (Wasps); M Horan (Munster), J Flannery (Munster), T Buckley (Munster), D O'Callaghan (Munster), P O'Connell (Munster), S Ferris (Ulster), S Jennings (Leinster), J Heaslip (Leinster). Replacements: R Best (Ulster) for Flannery, J Hayes (Munster) for Buckley (both half-time); A Quinlan (Munster) for O'Connell, D Wallace (Munster) for Heaslip, P Stringer (Munster) for Reddan, P Wallace (Ulster) for O'Gara, S Horgan (Leinster) for O'Driscoll (all 56 mins).

CANADA: J Pritchard (Bedford Blues); C Hearn (Castaway Wanderers), B Keys (Velox Valhallians), R Smith (Calgary Irish), J Mensah-Coker (Plymouth Albion); A Monro (Colorno, Italy), E Fairhurst (Cornish Pirates); K Tkachuk (Glasgow Warriors), P Riordan (University of Victoria Vikings, capt), J Thiel (Bayside Sharks), M Burak (Cornish Pirates), J Jackson (Bordeaux Begles), M Stephen (Plymouth Albion), A Kleeberger (University of Victoria Vikings), A Carpenter (Brantford Harlequins). Replacements: J Sinclair (Castaway Wanderers) for Stephen (46 mins), P Mackenzie (University of Victoria Vikings) for Pritchard (58 mins), T Hotson (Eastern Suburbs, Australia) for Burak, M Williams (James Bay Athletic Association) for Fairhurst, M Evans (Hartpury College) for Monro (all 60 mins), F Walsh (Vandals RFC) for Tkachuk (66 mins), M Pletch (Velox Valhallians) for Riordan (70 mins).

Referee: Christophe Berdos(France).