It would be a lie to say that Robbie Deans was chatty after his Australia side's defeat, but he praised the Irish for "playing more intelligently than us." He also had the good grace not to blame the referee, Bryce Lawrence: "We have to live with the ref's calls. And tonight we didn't."

Was he thinking of the scrummage? "That was one part of it." Anything else? "Ireland thoroughly deserved their victory."

It would be a fib to suggest that Declan Kidney took off his mask of inscrutability and shouted Ireland's win from the rooftops. He began by saying it had been "fairly good, all right". And that was about as effusive as Ireland's coach was, or ever is.

Brian O'Driscoll, on the left hand of Kidney, offered the best bit of analysis. Asked what he thought of Tommy Bowe's run at the end, the 90-metre gallop that did not lead to a try, the captain started talking about how, at his age, he could do 20 metres, maybe 30 metres at a push. But at 60: "First of all the head goes back, and then you feel it, the parachute opening. I recognised what Tommy was going through." He also unconvincingly offered the braking system as a tactic to use up time at the right end of the field.

O'Driscoll added that Ireland's pack was key to their victory. "It is difficult to win games when your pack are second-best but there was no doubt our pack laid the platform for the victory, that is unquestionable," he said.

On such a day he could have said that the four defeats in August were a deliberate ploy to keep any inflation of expectation under control. But he did not dare. Both coach and captain acknowledged that they would celebrate the win, without specifying how. At least it shows that living it up in Queenstown, as Ireland did before England, can be good for you.