The American team was worse than I expected. We had been led to believe that the changes to the side which played against England during the summer would strengthen them considerably but in reality, apart from Dan Lyle and Richard Tardits, the US side were not up to the required standard to give Ireland a hard game.

In fact when one looks at their previous results against Ireland (Ireland won three out of three meetings, 32-7, 26-15, 25-18) it seems that they have gone backwards. Frankly I expected more.

Their scrum was very poor and in trouble from the very outset. Their line-out was a shambles (10 out of 18 won). It is hard to understand how a team with such tall men are incapable of winning their own throws. They were obsessed with variations and gimmicks which seemed to confuse themselves more than the opposition. What little ball their backs did get was usually returned via an unforced error, invariably a knock on. They are not going to trouble anybody in the competition including Romania.

The Irish side did what had to be done on the night. The overall performance was more workmanlike than glamours and the management probably will not be too upset by that aspect of the performance. As has been the case in most of Ireland's recent games, our best attacking chances are line-outs and scrums close to the opposition line. All our scores, in fact, came directly or indirectly from these sources. I would like to have seen us strike a few times from further out but overall there was very little continuity between our forwards and backs.

It is probably in this one area that we differ from the stronger international sides. We are still very much a team of two distinct parts whereas the top sides are moving closer and closer to the idea of a single unit in which everybody shares the running, tackling and passing duties.

A number of Ireland's key players looked sharp and hungry. Nobody more so than Keith Wood, who will now be able to tell his grandchildren that he scored four tries in an international and was substituted.

I also think Brian O'Driscoll looked very sharp and was the most likely Irish back to create an opening. Only great cover tackling from the US stopped him from scoring on a few occasions. On the one occasion that he did score in the first half, he nearly went too far. Such an error could be costly in another situation.

Justin Bishop was the other who looked sharp and was always looking for work. His colleague Matt Mostyn on the other wing had very little to do in attack or defence. The jury is still out.

Jeremy Davidson looked as if he had not fully recovered from the back strain which kept him out of training earlier in the week and it certainly appeared to be a wise decision to replace him at half-time. Malcolm O'Kelly looks hungry. The continuing battle for places in the second row will be interesting.

The back row as a unit were competent, but did not really impress as an attacking force off what was, after all, an extremely dominant Irish scrum. They did not seem to have the strength or handling ability to do damage around the fringes and are more dangerous as an attacking force out wide where Dion O'Cuinneagain in particular can use his pace to greater effect.

The overall impression of the Irish side is one of little change from the pattern of play that we have come to expect in the last couple of years. There is no doubt that the pack will be able to compete with anybody in the set-pieces and while the backline looks very strong defensively, there are still lingering doubts about their attacking potential.

The mood does appear to be very positive and it will therefore be interesting to see how they approach the Australian game next Sunday. There has been a lot of talk about playing a second string team in that match. I don't believe that the Irish management will do that because if they did they could never use the word "pride' again in a team talk.

Players and management can now focus on the first real test against Australia next week. We are fortunate that none of our players, in particular our key players, were injured against the US as can so often happen in matches like Saturday's where the opposition are content to tackle hard all night knowing that they have little chance of being creative themselves.

I thought the support from the crowd was outstanding and augurs well for the rest of the tournament but maybe the IRFU should consider replacing Ireland's Call with The Fields of Athenry which was much more popular. Something has to be done about the fiasco of "two anthems."

In an interview with Johnny Watterson.