Having lost their previous three international games on the bounce, Eddie O'Sullivan's side would have been become the first Irish team since 1997/98 to lose four in a row had Bevan judged, as he could easily have done, that the outhalf hadn't in fact dotted the ball down legally.

Luckily for Ireland, though, the official gave them the try - to the incredulity of the Italians - and O'Sullivan's players can now head to France with a victory behind them, even if it wasn't of the moraleboosting variety.

All in all, it was a downbeat way to sign off before the World Cup. There's no question that this Ireland side are out of sorts right now, primarily because most of the players have only played a game or two of consequence in the past six months, and while there remain some serious issues to worry about, it was actually refreshing for a change to listen to the coach after the match.

Last February we pilloried O'Sullivan in these pages for his bizarrely upbeat postmatch interview after Ireland had been sunk by a last second French try at Croke Park but on Friday, for the first time in a long time, he actually came out with a frank and honest assessment of what occurred on the pitch. He used words and phrases like "disappointed", "wake-up call" and "focusing the mind" to describe the evening and even the haunted look on his face portrayed a general unhappiness with what he had witnessed. At least with this kind of up-front dissatisfaction, there's considerable hope that things that are going wrong now can be tweaked and rectified if not in the next two weeks, than certainly by the time Ireland take to the field against France on 21st September in Paris.

The primary matter that needs to be solved before that night is the balance of Ireland's back-row. If David Wallace's ankle heals as we're told it will, and the Munster number seven is fully fit by the time Ireland take the TGV from Bordeaux to the capital, then there's no question a lot of last night's problems will be solved, but as of now, things appear particularly lopsided.

Neil Best is a committed and ferocious player but he's not a number seven. The Ulster man may have been an effervescent presence at Ravenhill on Friday but he didn't provide a credible link between Ireland's forwards and backs.

The best example of this came in the very first minute.

Denis Leamy stormed through a gap in the Italian defence but after he was tackled and brought to ground, Ireland lost the ball because of lack of support. The trouble is that Best's first instinct is not the follow the play and be first at the scene of the breakdown.

He instead likes to hit the ruck "like a rutting stag" as Bill McLaren used to say, usually after one or two of his team mates have got there first.

That in turn meant that Ireland had much trouble excavating ruck ball. At times during the game, childbirth appeared more straightforward than what Peter Stringer had to do to get the ball free to serve to his backline. "Our ruck ball was slowed down out there and the key to our game is good ruck ball, clearing the ruck and getting the ball away quickly, " said O'Sullivan. "But there was a lot of digging for the ball, a lot of slow ball and that makes things much tougher. They're a physical side and we knew that if we got ball on the back foot it was going to be a hard game."

While Best clearly isn't the solution to Ireland's problems at seven in Wallace's absence, the truth is he's as good, or as bad, as anyone else in the squad in that position. It seems quite incredible now that O'Sullivan decided to pick Stephen Ferris ahead of Keith Gleeson in Ireland's World Cup party, particularly when you consider that he's known for some time that Wallace had suffered a recurrence of his long-time ankle trouble. If the coach decides to keep the Munster number seven in the squad and prays he returns to fitness in time for the France and Argentina games, Ireland might even have problems on the deck against Namibia and, particularly, the physical Georgians.

As for other matters, the new midfield combination of Gordon D'Arcy and Andrew Trimble didn't exactly click on Friday but that wasn't exactly their fault, as O'Sullivan recognised. "They didn't really fire well but you've got to balance that with the ball they got. They got pretty static ball in the middle of the park and they had to work very hard for their yards." Trimble was aggressive and eager for work all night long but he doesn't appear to have the best hands, a problem he may have picked up, like Shane Horgan, from playing so much rugby on the wing.

D'Arcy, meanwhile, was Ireland's best player on the night and even though missing Brian O'Driscoll and Shane Horgan for a game or two, at least, at the start of the World Cup is a blow, we'd wager that Ireland would be a lot worse off were D'Arcy to be cut down in training in the next few weeks. On Friday he was Ireland's only real provider of go-forward ball and he should be wrapped in cotton wool until Ireland arrive in France.

No doubt there'll be a bit of scare-mongering over the next couple of weeks about the trouble the Irish front-row found themselves in against Italy.

True, the visitors did appear to push the Irish trio around but the fact of the matter is that John Hayes, Marcus Horan and whoever's crouched between them at hooker over the past few years have always delivered for their country when they've needed to. We don't doubt for one second they'll do the same against the power props of France and Argentina next month.

So while there's plenty to do at least the coach appears to recognise that all is far from perfect. "It's probably a good thing, " O'Sullivan stated rather soberly. "It focuses the mind and it makes us realise we can take nothing for granted.

We've got to work very hard over the next two weeks and this might be the wake-up call we needed." The only nagging worry is that you feel Ireland should be taking it handy from now until the World Cup, rather than working themselves into the ground. The prime consolation is that Namibia and Georgia are up first and not the other two.