Power Failure Leaves O'sullivan to Find the Switch Before Paris

In the cold light of a new day, especially one enhanced by England's discomfort, Eddie O'Sullivan may have a point or three: an opening-day victory, no matter how ugly, leaves all the baubles of the Six Nations within Ireland's reach. However, this win is unlikely to give the coach anything like an easy ride to Paris next Saturday.

His many critics were lining up straight after Jonathan Kaplan's final whistle blew, the most theatrical taking strength from the boos of the departing 75,000 crowd. The Irish had come to Croke Park looking for redemption after the World Cup. Instead their training camp on Dublin Bay will be a difficult place again this week.

"The performance in general was not bells and whistles," O'Sullivan admitted after watching tapes of the game. "We didn't click when we needed to."

Actually they did, but not for long enough. After 20 minutes, with one try and 10 points in the bag, Ireland looked to be cruising against a side playing with a fly-half suffering chronic aversion to kicking and a kicking full-back disoriented by the wide open spaces of Croke Park.

While Italy's forwards labored to carry the ball into Irish territory, Ronan O'Gara was in his kicking pomp, turning the Italian defence with raking angles and making the most of David Bortolussi's navigational inadequacies. With so many crossfield kicks attempted, the Italian full-back should have seen what was coming long before Andrew Trimble finally got control of the bouncing ball to put Girvan Dempsey in.

The Italian forwards were being less than the handful expected - except in the lineout - and Eoin Reddan was darting his way to a man-of-the-match performance. And then ... nothing. Italy organised themselves, Ireland's run of chances dried up and Croke Park, like its team, suffered a power failure.

Bortolussi kicked a penalty, Simon Easterby was sin-binned within two minutes of being warned about his work in the ruck, a broken right arm put Gordon D'Arcy out of the tournament and Andrea Masi finally put boot to ball.

The debutant fly-half was also finding holes in the reorganized Irish midfield, although the man he put through was Martin Castrogiovanni and the prop was never going to win a foot race. However, a driving maul was more up Castrogiovanni's alley.

The Leicester prop had the ball when his pack drove over to get the deficit back to five points with 20 minutes to go. With stadium power back, cameras focused on O'Sullivan: cue the boo-boys.

After O'Gara and Bortolussi had added a penalty apiece O'Sullivan insisted it was a game that should have been won before half-time. Instead "it was a performance that turned ugly as it often has in the past against Italy and we had to dig out any ugly win".

D'Arcy's damaged right forearm means some reshuffling before Paris, possibly Trimble starting at center, where he is happiest for Ulster. O'Sullivan will also want to look at the lineout throwing of Rory Best and Easterby's contribution before being yellow-carded and replaced by Jamie Heaslip. But the coach is a conservative man, especially when others are trying to pick his team for him.

Nick Mallett said nice things about his new half-back partnership of Masi and Pietro Travagli but the Italian coach badly needs another kicker and is less than hopeful of finding one. "If you know one in Italy, let me know," he said.