WAS last week's 10-point defeat a flash in the bedpan? Or were Ireland going to be consistent and threaten Australia? We got the answer yesterday. In a closed-roof environment, Ireland came agonisingly close in a match that they could have won, but I for one would say that they should not have won. It was an extraordinary game laced with some real quality at times and at others a mix of the daft and the bizarre brought on either by rust or fatigue.

Ireland played with real intensity and impetus but not with enough initiative. This was a match where they needed to play heads-up rugby and they were just lacking a little bit of individual quality in the players that you would have expected to provide that quality.

Australia, not a little unlike Holland at the current European Championships, struck on the counter and improbably scored two fantastic tries against the run of play. They effectively stopped playing after 20 minutes and invited Ireland to come on to them and give it their best shot. That is how Australia have won Test matches over the course of the years. They have a fantastic facility to hold their line under pressure and this is what they did to win the match as Ireland dominated possession two-to-one and field position by an even bigger margin. How did Ireland manage to lose?

Well, if we can look back at last week's match, Ireland gave away 10 turnovers from set-plays. We were reassured that this would not happen again, but once again, the line-out was as reliable as a punctured condom. Ireland were turned over six (same as last week) times in this area. It doesn't matter whether you're beaten in the air, there is an overthrow, or you suffer a communications foul-up, it's still a turnover. Amazingly, for an eight that was under the cosh, the Aussies still managed to win their line-out ball handy. And so it came to pass in the 73rd minute that Ireland's Achilles heel struck again. Ireland had been in the ascendancy and were ramping up the intensity deep in Australia's territory. They were enjoying their task chasing the game. Flannery threw too long from one line-out and literally a minute later the ball went in crooked to Hayes. It's called suicide. Yet Ireland could still survive because they weren't under the same sort of pressure at scrum time.

New Zealand physically drain you at scrum time and the difference observed was that a lot of Ireland forwards had more sap in their legs to run around the park. This came down to a scrummage contest which if it had been a boxing match, the Australians' corner would have thrown the towel in after the first couple of engagements. Matt Dunning, picked on the unfamiliar tight-head side had a shocker. He was a throwback to the game 20 years ago. The body of a god, Buddha that is, and a face that would stop a sun dial. They don't pick them like him any more, but you would think that at least a blob could scrummage but he wasn't even able to do that. He had all the scrummaging power of Posh Spice and then had the indignity to be replaced by Al Baxter who is the worst prop in the world.

So Ireland should have been able to garner an advantage at scrum time. But even this was negated by the clueless man in the middle. I have a soft spot for Christophe Berdos, a swamp at the bottom of my garden. I hope I never have to watch a Test match officiated by him again. He had no idea what was happening at scrum time and the Australians were quite happy to turn it into a collapsible lottery where one minute he would penalise Ireland and the next Australia with no notion of why he was doing either. As it was, Ireland could at least gain some reasonable ball from this area and Heaslip looked a far more proficient and determined player than he was in the New Zealand game.

Ireland were unfortunate to lose Shane Jennings. He was not particularly effective for the time that he was on the pitch but he was the recipient of a dangerous tackle from Peter Hynes. I would suspect that he was not fit going out on the park. He would have been the only one to counter the illegalities of George Smith, who once again slowed Irish ball down so it became worthless. Again this is where the match was very predictable. Ireland's ruck ball was just too slow to try and play the game they were playing yesterday. It was next-day delivery in a nanosecond world and they made themselves easy targets for Australia's oppressive push defence. But one man who took no cognisance of what was going on in front of him was Rob Kearney. He gave a stunning performance of attacking abandon and dashing bravery with buccaneering interventions all over the paddock. The guy was in the zone yesterday. He was so confident about his ability, he didn't so much run with the ball as swagger and he gave the best display from an Irish full back since, eh, since ... ever.

Australia looked very very good with their offload game in the first 20 and from positions of no real attacking danger they managed to score two really excellent tries, both coming from anticipated runs by the support player off a tackled player, knowing that the offload/pop-up was coming. That was another difference between the sides. When Ireland did manage to effect the offload, the support player never burst onto the ball, or came at hard angles to take real advantage of the line bust.

Berrick Barnes had a sat nav on when he locked on to Lote Tuqiri's flick off the arm he landed on in the tackle. It was a stunning piece of anticipation. And Giteau's forceful running took in three Irish tacklers and fooled Stringer before a delayed flick inside to James Horwill put Ireland in trouble.

In the intervening period, it looked like all Ireland were capable of was a line-out maul. Australia only defended the initial maul with three players and one flapping sideman. This only encouraged Ireland and Leamy, O'Connell, Best and Horan accelerated off the left hand side after a well-worked change of direction. But Ireland had a lot more up their sleeve and prompted by brilliant displays from Kearney, Leamy, O'Connell and O'Driscoll, they put Australia under savage pressure. Ireland scored one of the best tries they've managed since the England game in Croke Park. From a position deep in their own 22, O'Callaghan took a line-out. Reddan, for some reason only known to him, decided to box-kick the ball seven yards from his line. Leamy running from behind Mr Berdos's back, at least a yard and a half off-side took a brilliant take in the air off the disappointing Luke Burgess.

Paddy Wallace, from the recycle, skipped O'Driscoll and put a lovely floated pass into Ireland's new strike runner Kearney. He stood up to Giteau and the offload to Bowe was half a yard forward. Nobody called it so they all kept running. Bowe scooted down the wing. Hynes couldn't get to him in time with a poor tackle and as Shepherd came across, Bowe flicked it inside to O'Driscoll with Tuqiri taken out of it. Giteau did brilliantly well to actually cover back and tackle O'Driscoll but not enough to stop the determined Irish skipper from getting over the line. It looked like he had given up scoring tries for Lent and just forgot to start again. It was an important try for him.

Ireland had four try-scoring opportunities in the second half and only took one. With a surfeit of possession and a huge amount of time on the ball, that was unacceptable against an Australian side that was match-rusty and were defending from memory. Only O'Connell ruefully in his post-match interview acknowledged that it was not good enough. Meanwhile, most of his team-mates were shining up their surf boards.