RUGBY:Having already moved with indecent haste before the World Cup to extend Eddie O'Sullivan's contract by four years, the IRFU chief executive, Philip Browne, last night reacted with even more astonishing speed in backing the Ireland coach until 2012.

Speaking on RTÉ's Six One News, Browne was asked if the four-year extension would be honoured.

"Absolutely," he said. "We have put our faith in Eddie. We made decisions last May in terms of where we wanted to go over the next four years. That came to fruition in the form of a contract with Eddie for the next four years. We're very happy with that decision and in our view he is still the best man for that job.

"What we have is a situation where we've had three bad matches and people are very disappointed - no more so than ourselves - but we also have to reflect on what has happened over the last four or five years, where we have had the most successful performance of any Irish team or squad.

"That in effect really dictated and set the scene or the context in which we made decisions. In our view those decisions were right and we are quite happy with the situation we have.

"You can look across the water in Wales, where decisions have been made in relation to their coach. Wales are going into a situation where they have had 12 or 14 coaches in the last 21 years. I don't think that is necessarily good for Irish rugby to go down that road. We believe in continuity.

"We are a small sporting nation, and I think what Eddie has brought to this team and Irish rugby has been second to none.

"I think we had a blip. We are going to have to address the reasons why we had that blip and we'll do that in a considered way in a review process."

It will be interesting to see if the Irish rugby and sporting public concur with the view of the IRFU's chief executive that this World Cup was just "a blip".

In effect, though, Browne has pre-empted and even undermined this customary post-tournament, in-house review. He maintained the review would include the head coach "and indeed everyone else involved with the team. The professional structures that are in there to support the team in terms of logistics, in terms of the medical set-up, in terms of the fitness set-up. We have always taken a view that we look at ourselves honestly, and this is no different".

As other unions and federations long realised, the end of a World Cup campaign - not the beginning - marks the conclusion of a four-year cycle. What's more, it's generally the best time to look for successors if needs be, but the official stance will perhaps encourage O'Sullivan that his six-year, 74-game tenure might yet endure to 2012 and around 120 matches despite Ireland's poor World Cup.

The highlight of yesterday's post-mortem was Risteárd Cooper - part of the Hector Ó hEochagáin team putting together what should be an unmissable Chasing The Blues for RTÉ - imitating Colm Murray of RTÉ Sport and asking O'Sullivan if he was "a croque, Monsieur". O'Sullivan looked askance at the IRFU's PRO, who demanded "professional questions only".

It was a rare moment of both levity and spontaneity in the last grim month. Once more there was a refusal to accept any responsibility from the top table for Ireland's below-par performances, the head coach seeming not to believe he should have to.

Asked what he would say to the many fans leaving the ground on Sunday night and demanding that he and his backroom team should stand down, O'Sullivan said: "I wouldn't agree with that. My contract with the IRFU runs for another while. I intend to see it out. This is just one particular aspect that hasn't gone well. It's a high-profile tournament and we have to assess why it hasn't."

Nor did he doubt his employers would honour his contract.

"I absolutely do. Of course I do. If I felt I hadn't the ability I wouldn't take the job on. Of course."

Asked was he relieved the IRFU had granted him a four-year extension before the World Cup, he said: "I am not relieved that the contract was signed beforehand. This is not about that. I went into discussions with the IRFU three months ago at their behest. We talked about going forward over four years. We plan in four-year cycles and they wanted me to take the team going forward. They had taken that decision long before the World Cup and it was taken knowing that we were going into the World Cup where we would be in a very difficult group."

Yes, but finishing a distant third, nine points behind Argentina with an inferior points differential of 128, and six adrift of France (whose points difference was 169 better) was hardly part of the deal.

The golden generation, with a head coach given unfettered power and limitless back-up, managed to outscore the might and cutting edge of Georgia, Namibia, Romania, Portugal, the USA and Canada. Way to go.

Again, there was no accountability for the poor skills, the lack of physical impact in collision, the awful kicking, the muddled strategy, the one-eyed selection system that made scant use of bench or squad and hardly seemed to attempt to remedy the manifold problems in performance, or anything else that went wrong.

Again, the only explanation for Ireland coming way short of expectations was lack of match practice.

"From the off we looked like a team short of match practice and didn't get the quality performances we were looking for," said O'Sullivan. "In retrospect, I would have put a lot more rugby in the lead-in, especially the last five to six weeks, and take the chance that players might get injured."

But this hasn't stopped Argentina (who played Chile, Belgium and Wales), France, Fiji or Scotland qualifying or, along with Tonga, playing much better than Ireland.

Indeed, the only reason there was such disappointment in the air, he maintained, was because of the performances last autumn and in the Six Nations.

"Had we played badly in autumn and lost to Australia and South Africa and had a bad Six Nations where we lost a couple of games, expectations wouldn't have been so high and people wouldn't have been talking about this as a crisis."

Actually, they would have done, and even more so.