Two things emerged from the Ireland press conference in the wake of Saturday's victory over Italy, firstly that Rome was not built in a day and that the Irish team still retain that innate ability to shock given the error strewn dross that they presented in the opening 40 minutes at Lansdowne Road.
Ireland coach Warren Gatland was remarkably reticent in his criticism of Ireland's first half fumblings. "There were a lot of silly turnovers and basic handling errors. We were very tentative to the point of being nervous. The players appeared to be lacking in confidence. We need to cut out the basic mistakes. I must confess that I was nearly pulling my hair out in the stands at one stage.
"For them (Italy) to kick off three times and for us to muck it up every time is unacceptable at this level." In reference to a question regarding the number of balls spilled in contact Gatland did concede that it could be attributed to "a lack of basic skill."
Ireland's second half performance may be attributed to a few broken tea-cups in the bowels of the West Stand, thrown by assistant coach Philip Danaher. Gatland smiled: "Philip lost his head a bit at half-time," while Danaher would later admit: "Some of those basic errors we made were deeply annoying. These are professional players and you'd think they would take responsibility there."
It was hardly surprising that the focus swiftly switched to the second half performance that enabled Ireland to overturn a 23-8 deficit and salvage a 39-30 victory. Gatland outlined the positive aspects of the display. "I thought we showed character to come back from 23-8 when we were under a bit of pressure.
"We scored a couple of lovely tries. It's nice to see the wingers get a try each and the fullback score a couple. We said to the players at half-time, play with a bit of confidence and play some rugby which we did pretty well in the second half. We need to concentrate on going out and playing rugby."
Two players that the Irish coach singled out were fullback Conor O'Shea and man of the match Trevor Brennan. "I thought Conor had a good game and I was delighted with Trevor Brennan's performance. His discipline was excellent and he made big tackles. He still has things to work on in terms of his handling and decision making on the ball but I thought he had a very good game."
The consensus amongst the players was one of relief coupled with the satisfaction for the backs at least, of scoring a couple of well-worked tries. Kevin Maggs, another who performed very capably conceded: "The first half was a bit of a shocker. We knew they would respond positively to the Welsh defeat but we turned over far too much ball.
"At least in the second half we showed that we can play running rugby, that we can move the ball wide and score tries. We have received criticism in the past but all it has made us is more determined to do well."
On the Five Nations Gatland said: "We won four out of eight test matches but I am disappointed we did not achieve the targets we set in the Five Nations Championship. We were looking to finish third.
"Myself and Philip are reasonably happy that we will be competitive by the time the World Cup comes around. I am not happy with the fitness levels of some players in the team but we are working hard on changing that and other things. Things don't happen overnight. Rome wasn't built in a day." Ireland seem destined to take a good deal longer.
