Wheels coming off for coach O'Sullivan

Comparisons with some of the other games on show last Saturday were always going to be on the pungent side of odious for Ireland.

But it wasn't that Wales-Australia, Scotland-New Zealand or France-South Africa were inestimably better games, it was that the performances of Ireland's Celtic cousins showed Eddie O'Sullivan's team up in such a bad light.

No less than England a week ago at Twickenham, Scotland's defensive aggression, enthusiasm and belief put Ireland's limp, one-dimensional effort against the All Blacks into perspective. They went on to the Murrayfield pitch, admittedly against an All Blacks side bordering on thirds, with a clear idea of how they were going to play and a spirit about them.

Ditto a typically daring comeback win for Wales over Australia certainly contrasted with Ireland's brittle effort against the Wallabies (giving them their only win in nine games).

Under Mike Ruddock, of course, the Welsh are years ahead of Ireland in their stated pursuit of a ball-in-hand game. Leinster players who worked under him would never claim Ruddock to be a technically brilliant coach, but he has the self confidence to gladly share the credit with a team including the much-lauded, quirky Australian Scott Johnson, who has been in situ since February 2002 and is widely credited as the technical genius behind the operation.

If one memory stands out from last Saturday it is of Gordon D'Arcy taking quick lineout ball up the middle and then checking. Everybody stopped. It was like someone had hit the pause button - before D'Arcy changed his route.

Confusion reigned. As one former player put it on Saturday night, it's as if they go on to the field handcuffed and with cement in their boots.

Although Ireland spent too much time on the back foot in the second half, the most disappointing aspect of the home performance was how they used the ball.

Whenever Ireland could work their backs into some space there always seemed the potential for some reward there, typified by Geordan Murphy easily negotiating a gap between the Romanian props to send in Andrew Trimble for his first try.

But so much of Ireland's work looked laborious and preordained. You could often pick out Ireland's intended runner, one or two passes off the base, before the ball came to him, with the programmed pods - Irish-pods you might call them - dutifully running in behind him to effect the clear-out. Maybe Ireland should be sponsored by Apple.

You watched the Welsh-Australian game afterwards, or most of the autumn fare on offer for that matter, and continually saw teams passing flat to any one of three or four potential targets, which keeps defences guessing until the last second.

Ireland rarely seem to use decoy runners, or make decisions on the ball based on what they see in front of them or with more than one option available to them.

There have been pluses this autumn - the emergence of Denis Leamy and Trimble to name two, albeit it with riders as to how they can be accommodated in the Six Nations - but they have been weighed down by all the negatives.

For example, while hardly alone if suffering a post-Lions dip, Ronan O'Gara has possibly been damaged by an undistinguished autumn and may perhaps feel he was scapegoated a little last week against Australia. There are also rumours of a big training-ground bust-up between O'Gara and O'Sullivan last week. He is still the incumbent, but to have a viable alternative to him, Irish rugby needs David Humphreys to keep going a while more yet.

More pertinently, this Irish team now looks in need of rejuvenation. One ventures that the players were elated to be rid of this autumn when they returned home over the weekend. They just don't look like they are enjoying their work any more.

Eddie O'Sullivan still seems impregnable, thanks not least to the strong hand he's been given by the IRFU, and the likelihood is he will comfortably survive any post-autumn inquisition. Indeed, his increased power over latter years may be part of the problem.

The comings and goings within the Irish coaching structure, the continuing non-selection of players such as Trevor Brennan, Bob Casey and David Wallace, have all been well documented, but by comparison to most other set-ups, it seems to be far too much of a one-man operation.

Were the FAI running this show, alarm bells would now be ringing. As Ireland's longest-serving coach with a rich crop of talent, O'Sullivan has orchestrated some great days, but sadly, after four years and 49 games of his tenure, this Irish team looks badly in needed of a regime change. Otherwise, all the indications are that things will get worse before they get better.

"Eddie, steady, go . . ." ran a headline in the Sunday Tribune yesterday. It's liable to become as catching as it is catchy.