Last Sunday, 12 months to the day of that 14-30 defeat, against the same opposition, at the same venue, at almost the same time in the game, a similar little scenario played itself out. This time Ireland were 8-3 in front, a scoreline that flattered Australia, and the ball was moved from left to right as Ireland attacked the Lansdowne Road End of the ground. O'Gara looped around Brian O'Driscoll in midfield and then straightened the line to release Shane Horgan down the right-hand touchline. With the Leinster man running out of room, Murphy ran a perfect line off his left-hand shoulder and Horgan's pass was perfectly married with his full-back's run. Instead of a five-point lead, Ireland left the half with a 12-point margin for company, a figure that came somewhat close to representing their dominance. Again, nobody at Lansdowne Road could deny it was the game's pivotal moment.

This, however, isn't a simple tale of one chance missed and another taken, it goes a bit deeper than that. The lack of harmony between Bowe and Murphy in messing up that opportunity back in 2005 was in complete contrast to the way O'Gara, O'Driscoll and in particular Horgan and Murphy combined to effectively finish Australia off last Sunday. In that single move we saw confidence, vision, skill and, above all, accuracy, ingredients which had been completely lacking against the Wallabies in 2005 and in many other games during the first three years of Eddie O'Sullivan's Ireland reign. In 12 months there's been an awful lot of progress, so much so that many rugby folk around the country are now guffawing at the calls for the coach's head, in these pages among others, a year or so ago.

But that kind of attitude misses the point entirely. A year ago O'Sullivan should have been sacked because he was hugely underachieving with the resources he had at his disposal. Sure, the results being achieved were a lot better than much of what had gone before but that wasn't really comparing like with like. The amateur era was being measured against the professional one, and Ireland's record post '95 was always going to be an awful lot more stable than the blood and thunder days of old.

Recent results have Ireland somewhere near the level where their collective and individual talent should always have had them at, but if O'Sullivan deserves credit for anything, it's for having the strength of character, and absence of ego, to cast aside his long-held rugby philosophies to allow this Irish team to play to their strengths. We doubted aloud in these pages previously whether the coach had the will, or even the ability, to do just that, but he's now a much different coach to a year ago.

There are plenty of examples to mark the change in philosophy. Tactically, for instance, Ireland are a completely different animal to what they were in O'Sullivan's first three years. If we compare the victory over England at Lansdowne Road in March 2005, to last week's demolition job on Australia, it's like comparing two entirely different teams. Against England, Ireland kicked the ball 35 times, 31 per cent of possession, while last weekend, it was 23 times, which constituted just 16 per cent of total possession. In that England game, they managed just 76 passes in fairly mild conditions, while last week in a mini-storm they passed the ball 119 times. The tackle statistics are also pretty striking.

In that victory over England, Ireland were forced to make 106 tackles over the 80 minutes; last week, they made just 54 tackles, a tally completely in keeping with a team who are holding on to the ball more and not allowing the opposition to get a hold of it cheaply. In fact, last week's game was one of the first examples of Ireland playing their way to victory over one of rugby's major superpowers, rather than tackling their way to a famous scalp.

From tactics to selection.

Last year, O'Sullivan's continued cold-shoulder treatment of David Wallace baffled everybody but now the Munster open-side is an integral part of the team. The coach also appeared to be blind to the merits of Rob Kearney and Jamie Heaslip, among other young tyros, but his selection of the Leinster number eight against the Pacific Island this afternoon, as well as Luke Fitzgerald, would suggest that he's looking at things a touch differently this year. Even his decision to play Bryan Young and Isaac Boss against Australia shows that he genuinely wants to come up with alternatives in a couple of positions. Last year all the coach talked about was getting his best XV on the pitch. It's been some turnaround.

Off the pitch, things have changed just as drastically.

After last November's defeats to the All Blacks and Australia, the decision was taken along with the players to switch hotel bases from the Citywest in Saggart to the Killiney Castle Hotel. The players have also been granted more days off during their stints in camp. They often assemble on a Monday morning rather than Sunday night, while they were granted two days off after the victory over South Africa, rather than the customary one. An in-camp routine that was once mindnumbing, has been utterly refreshed. It's also been invigorating to see Niall O'Donovan, Graham Steadman and Brian McLaughlin wheeled out for the odd press conference, rather than listening to O'Sullivan all the time. Their public presence also helps belie the previous notion that the Irish camp was run solely by the head coach. It now appears to be much more of a democracy and the performances over the past few weeks have borne witness to just that.

The coach's philosophies have changed, but let's hope it hasn't happened too late.

Had O'Sullivan taken note of what half the country were saying to him back in early 2005, then we could be coming off back-to-back victories over Australia, rather than just the one.

And maybe, just maybe, New Zealand could have been put to bed on one occasion during the summer rather than just dressed for it.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. Perhaps we should be grateful for the small mercies that we have.