It's fairly self explanatory and it had absolutely no rugby connotations. But, for the purposes of illustration, it describes exactly Ireland's plight in their quest for entry into the pantheon of serious rugby sides.

For the moment, we will leave an assessment on Ireland's tour for next week.

But for now, even though they might rail against the notion and communicate it to you differently, Ireland are probably happy with an enhanced reputation. That's with the three zip reading in their test matches this summer.

This was Ireland's worst test hammering in a long time and their biggest margin against Australia in about 15 years. We need to know how it came about. One thing that we do know now, is that Australia are a very decent side and they will challenge the All Blacks in the Tri Nations series next month.

Back to those five minutes. Ireland scrapped and scraped in the first half, they were heading for a slow brave death and suddenly they had an air pocket and managed to turn the trend of the match upside down. Two brilliant tries in the space of eight minutes put them 15-11 ahead and in a position of ascendancy.

Australia didn't look remotely bothered. No panic or fear in their faces. Australia would be patient and work their way back into the game. God bless us if they started to panic over a four-point margin. They wouldn't be half the side that we thought they were.

So you suspected Australia would turn up the gas and put pressure back on Ireland. What you didn't really expect to happen was the compendium of mistakes which only Bozo the Clown would have been happy with. It was straight out of Barnum and Bailey. And Ireland ceded the game without ever having to make Australia work to get back into it.

It was galling.

That compendium of mistakes started directly from the kick-off. Paul O'Connell went high but was hopelessly misplaced to make an accurate catch.

He missed the ball completely. Horgan, who had sidled up behind him, knocked the ball on and then threw a leg at the ball to try and give it an agricultural hoof down the field. It was the stuff of a 3rd B side.

From the scrum, Australia gave away a free kick. As they had done for most of the match, Ireland tried to lift the tempo. Stringer tapped and went and got Wallace going forward. He was put to ground and O'Callaghan came in looking for the pop up. The feed was good, accurate and direct, and O'Callaghan still managed to knock it on.

So Australia got the ball back again.

Ireland were pinged at scrum time and this time Australia went for the tap and go. Smith took off, went at Leamy and O'Callaghan, Leamy missed the straightup tackle, O'Callaghan just about got him and then the Australians managed to do what Ireland couldn't, get the ball away in the tackle on the ground and Chisholm took it on even further.

From the recycle, Sharpe took it on, Leamy was up at this stage as the recycle was slow but he hadn't managed to close enough space down and Sharpe made six or seven yards more than he should have. Ireland were defending comfortably and had their zones worked pretty well but Hayes was too far outfield for his or anyone's liking and Mark Gerard spotted the mountain in the middle of the park. There was space outside but the mismatch had been identified. He ran at the isolated Hayes, showed the ball, arced and simply accelerated past Hayes to score at the posts.

Six phases, seven mistakes and a threepoint gap which would never be threatened again. Mother Teresa rugby, as charitable a surrender of initiative that I have ever seen.

You always sensed that on a good pitch with none of the elements to distract, this would be a far more fluid game, and for Ireland and their ultra conservative coach this was a move outside of their conservative strata.

They say more errors arise from inhibited decision making than from impulsive intuitive behaviour, but yesterday that was not the case and Ireland made many rash decisions and played a game that was in many ways alien to them, even though they aspire to play that type of game. And yet again, as the second half got longer, Ireland's chances of scoring looked more and more remote and for the third test in a row Ireland did not score in the last 30 minutes, which is an extremely worrying trend.

Monotony is the awful reward of the careful, and many of us want to see Ireland play a far more dynamic and fluid game. And in that wonderful ten minutes which straddled the half-time break, Ireland played stuff which the Harlem Globetrotters would have been proud of.

Neil Best's try in the 50th minute was one of the best tries Ireland have scored in a long long time, exceptional for its work rate primarily because some of the players involved appeared twice in the passage of play. None more so than Neil Best who was the primary catalyst from the start.

Australia were going through their phases, they hadn't really stretched Ireland and they gave it to one of their concrete mixers just to take the ball forward. Shepherdson ran into Best and Leamy and the two Irish back rowers combined brilliantly in the double tackle to bring him to ground and to wrench the ball from his grasp. The ball fell loose and Hayes balletically scooped it to O'Connell. He took it forward and fed to Flannery who did brilliantly to work it away in a simple manoeuvre to Stringer who rode two tackles before he ran into Loti (cul-desac) Tuqiri. Stringer was shaken but not stirred and managed to leave the ball well presented. O'Gara had the wit to come in and play scrum-half and Flannery at this stage had looped around and ran straight before transferring to Leamy.

This is where you can sense where the progress was made. Leamy's transfer out of the tackle was simple, yet skilful, and Dempsey made good progress down the left-hand side before he too was tackled, yet he managed to get it away to Trimble, also down the left-hand side. It's the key difference in terms of improvement, the sense and want to look around instinctively when you've been hit hard in the tackle and still manage to get it away.

Rathbone, the Australian winger, had been injured in the lead up to the play, so the Australians had to scramble across to the left of the pitch. Trimble managed to keep it alive to Leamy again who popped inside to Best who dotted down. It was fitting that the two men who started the move had finished it.

And suddenly Ireland were in charge and looking like they could win this match with ease.

But the next five minutes told us differently. And, apart from Mark Gerard's try under the sticks, Ireland were hit with another sucker punch six minutes later. Australia have thrived on their big defence and Tuqiri put in a monster hit on Trimble. It was a tackle which strayed almost into the realms of a spear tackle. Trimble lost the ball immediately. Greg Holmes, the Australian loose head, picked it up at the back of the ruck and ran through 65 yards leaving some of the Irish backs trailing in his wake to score under the sticks.

We now know why O'Sullivan hasn't used his bench throughout the summer series. Brian Young came on for Marcus Horan and Al Baxter, the Australian tight head who sounds like a stand-up comedian and is recognised as one of the world's worst tight heads in rugby drilled Young and Australia got a strike against the head. Isaac Boss came on for Peter Stringer and made a feeble attempt to catch George Gregan from a simple 8-9. He knew it himself.

In the last 30 minutes, all of Ireland's good work in terms of line-out snaffles and some brilliant turnovers on the ground were negated as they themselves started to cough up ball cheaply.

In the end, they waited for the final whistle and bravely kept the score down as much as they could. It was a bad end to the tour. Ireland have progressed but in this environment you can't say no labour pains, just the baby.

They should enjoy their break.