Afterwards, in the press office, the local organising committee's media man, Gbenga Giwa, was suffering from a severe case of diminished expectations. Two hours previously there had been talk of Nigeria doing even better against Paraguay than they had against Germany last Wednesday, and kind words about how tough it would be for the Irish to play the Australians at four in the afternoon.

Now, before Mexico's game with the Saudis, there was the distinct possibility that Ireland would be staying at their Ibadan base and their hosts would, so to speak, be stopping by some time later this week.

"Maybe it wouldn't be so good for us to play you yet," grinned the towering local man. "First you lose, then you win by two and now by four; in the next match there is no telling how many you will win by."

After Costa Rica sent Germany home and the Mexican game was drawn, the venue changed but the second round pairing of hosts and European champions remained the same.

A few minutes earlier, a few metres away, Brian Kerr had been attempting to counter the spiralling expectations that this, "one of the best performances that I've seen by any Irish side for some time", was giving rise to.

"Obviously enough I'm delighted with the way the game went," said Kerr through a grin almost as broad as Giwa's. "It's a good achievement for us to reach the second round, but we have to keep our ambitions in perspective. When it comes down to it, it's a good week's work for us to go from losing our first game to qualifying for the second phase."

As he had on Wednesday, the Ireland manager let the praise flow for a group of players that even the Australians conceded had physically overrun them in spite of the punishing heat and humidity.

Ireland's superiority in the opening period was astonishing. But, having looked worth more than their one goal advantage at the break, there was the obvious concern that the Australians would start to make the heat count in their favour as the game wore on. For a while, things did improve

The first 20 minutes of the second period were probably their best in terms of share of possession. The problem for the Oceania champions, though, was that they needed to win the game to be sure of progressing, and, having been punished by Richard Sadlier late in the first half for a breakdown in their marking, the cracks were beginning to appear every time they attempted to edge forward.

A superb goal by Damien Duff - the Blackburn winger drifted past three defenders before turning inside and sending the ball, right-footed, past Mike Turnbull - was the first blow to Australian hopes of salvaging even a point.

When Colin Healy added a second their cause was doomed, so Ger Crossley's late effort had little visible impact on Ireland's already dejected opponents.

That the goals had started to rattle in and that the Irish defence had coped so comfortably early in the second period, when the Australians were clearly desperate to get an equaliser, clearly boosted the confidence levels of Kerr's team afterwards.

There were smiles all around as the team wandered from the Liberty Stadium for the last time, with every one of the players justifiably proud of a job well done. Kerr had shown them a few minutes of themselves on video just before the team had left for the game - "The bits where they were really good from the earlier games, the bits we wanted them to play like all of the time" - and the players had rewarded their manager with a performance that should leave him spoilt for choice next time he wants to cobble together a "how to" manual.

The quiet-spoken Healy had a particular spring in his step. Having spoken about how thrilled he was to get his name on the scoresheet, the Celtic midfielder was asked how hard it had been to cope with the afternoon heat. "Not too bad really," he beamed. "We were told to take plenty of breathers and we tried to do that whenever we could."

"But how did you cope with the dehydration?" one journalist persisted, to which the young Corkman, mistakenly reported in this paper last week as having been consuming too much confectionary after a joke was taken far too literally, replied: "I grabbed some water as often as I could . . . as well as the odd Mars bar."

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND: Delaney (Everton); Donnolly (Leeds Utd), Gavin (Middlesbrough), Ferguson (Coventry), Heary (Huddersfield); Healy (Celtic), Quinn (Coventry), McPhail (Leeds), Duff (Blackburn); Sadlier (Millwall), Keane (Wolves). Subs: Casey (Swansea) for Sadlier (67 mins), Baker (Shelbourne) for Keane (78 mins), Crossley (Celtic) for Quinn (83 mins).

AUSTRALIA: Turnbull; Colosimo, Bosnar, Wilson; Emerton, Culina, Grella, Bresciano, Terminello; Maisano, Sterjovski. Subs: Invincible and Care for Culina and Maisano (half-time), Griffiths for Terminello (70 mins).

Referee: M Gonzalez (Uruguay).