Australia completed the first round of World Cup games in fitting style for a weekend largely made notable for its surfeit of predictably lop-sided games when beating Romania by 57-9 in Ravenhill last night. Hence, they had the minor satisfaction of eclipsing Ireland's winning margin 24 hours beforehand, and so lead Pool E on points difference going into next Sunday's pivotal group game.
"We haven't played for some five weeks and I think it showed," admitted their coach Rod Macqueen. "The scrum was good, some of our back-line play was good, we need to do a bit of work on our line-outs and we put the ball down a bit, which is a trait of ours, making the hard yards and then breaking down in the simple transfer of pass. But overall, we've got to be reasonably happy with the result."
Looking ahead to next week's showdown with Ireland, Macqueen said: "We know they're playing well and we know it's going to be a very difficult match for us. We'll need to play very well if we're going to win."
Undoubtedly though, the highlight of the opening weekend of RWC '99 had been provided at Murrayfield, where the holders, South Africa, eventually subdued a brave and inventive Scotland by 46-29 in front of a raucous crowd of 67,000. Not only was it the most competitive match of the first round, it was arguably the only one.
In Pool D, Manu Samoa put reports of a Japanese renaissance in perspective with an eye-catching 43-9 victory at Wrexham. Meanwhile the All Blacks were, admittedly, put to the sword by the heavy-hitting Tongans, but two tries by New Zealand's most famous export, Jonah Lomu, set the tournament favourites on their way to a 45-9 win in Pool B at Bristol's Ashton Gate.
However, for the moment at any rate, even Lomu has been eclipsed by the remarkable Keith Wood, whose quartet of tries was a record at international level for any front-row forward in the history of the game. He himself had never even scored a hat-trick before.
It also equalled the Irish record by an individual player. That matched the benchmark set by Brian Robinson eight years ago against Zimbabwe, ironically also in an Irish World Cup opener. Wood's strike rate for Ireland is now nine tries in 28 tests, a phenomenal average for a hooker. "That means nothing," he said dismissively and modestly.
Nevertheless, there's just no escaping Uncle Fester in this World Cup it seems, and anyone who invested in the sizeable odds on him being the tournament's leading try-scorer will be clutching their docket optimistically.
A bottle of champagne awaited Wood and his team-mates, courtesy of the Finnstown House Hotel, on their return for some low-key celebrations before they flew on towards their base for this week in Clonakilty. Wood has been "totally slagged" by his squad mates ever since the game. "I've been torn asunder, which is fine," said Wood.
It even began on the pitch, when Eric Elwood bemoaned the hooker's greed in not passing to him and giving the out-half his first try in an Irish shirt.
Wood singled out the final effort, latching onto Elwood's well-weighted chip to the corner, as his favourite. "I liked the last one. It was a nice try. All I had to do was fall on the ball. It was a perfect kick by Eric.
"I enjoyed the match. It was an enjoyable match to play in and I'm delighted to have scored them, but I just happened to be at the end of them. "We're not going to get carried away by scoring 50 points. We weren't up against that great a side, but I thought we played very well actually. At times there was a strange looseness to the game, but we closed their game down very well. "We did an awful lot of the things we wanted to do. We were quite clinical and I was very happy with the way we played."
Indeed, as is typical of the man who espouses the collective above the individual, Wood's memories of this day began first and foremost with: "A tear in Andy Ward's eye in the changing-room before the game. That was the start of it."
All in all, it might surprise people to learn how emotional the day was for this Irish team, for another Wood memory of the day was "all the guys singing the national anthem. That wouldn't have been so pronounced previously."
However, it was the singing of the Lansdowne Road crowd, who may not have filled the place to anything like capacity but were true supporters as opposed to "occasion" people, which really raised the hairs on the Irish players' necks.
"Hearing The Fields of Athenry at the start of the second-half was special. The crowd were outstanding and the people that were there really wanted to be there.
"All the players felt it. That is exactly what we want. We need a momentum to build up now. You wouldn't really notice that anything is going on in Dublin right now, but if everybody turns up in Lansdowne Road next Sunday in full voice and wearing green, it would be great."
A worried New Zealand coach John Hart admitted that his team would have to dramatically improve if they were going to beat England when the two sides clash next Saturday.
"We've got a lot of work to do and have to improve considerably. For us today, I thought it was a really good first game to have - Tonga were very physical and we had to work around that, which I think we did in the end, said Hart."
Captain Taine Randell agreed his side would have to show a massive improvement for the Twickenham showdown. "We expected to do a hell of a lot better but we knew the Tongans would be really fired up for this one," said the number eight, sporting a number of bruises and abrasions.
Hart was disappointed that some of the Tongan big hits went unpunished by top Welsh referee Derek Bevan. "I was a bit disappointed with some of the things that went unnoticed, but I thought our composure was good. I was concerned at some of the high tackles."
Tonga coach Dave Waterston was full of praise for his players. "New Zealand beat us fair and square, but today represented a major step forward for Tongan rugby," he said. "We stood up and were counted in those last 10 minutes, when a lesser side would have been broken. Our boys are made of steel, and I loved every tackle that went in today."
