We’ve emerged from the dark, says enlightened O’Driscoll

Ireland’s achievement in finishing 2009 unbeaten and as Six Nations Grand Slam champions with a 15-10 victory over world and Tri-Nations champions South Africa on Saturday showed they had emerged from the dark days of a year ago said captain Brian O’Driscoll.

The Irish – who this November drew 20-20 with Australia and thrashed Fiji – scored all their points through green fly-half Jonathan Sexton, preferred to 93-times capped Ronan O’Gara, while South Africa scored the only try through Schalk Burger.

However, O’Driscoll, who was recording his third successive home victory over the Springboks, said the fact the Irish had finished unbeaten and turned round a 10-6 half-time deficit showed their newly-discovered mettle.

“We are continuing to progress but we were in a dark place this time last year,” said O’Driscoll, who even by his high standards has had an outstanding year landing both the Grand Slam and the European Cup with Leinster.

“We did a lot of soul searching and our improvement is down to a lot of mental resilience.

“The I’s have been dotted and the T’s crossed. One has to give a lot of credit to the guys and the backroom staff in the way that things have been turned around.”

Ireland coach Declan Kidney, who has engineered effectively with the same group an extraordinary turnaround in their fortunes since replacing Eddie O’Sullivan, said that the victory would give them a good guide as to how much they has progressed.

“To finish the year with a win is good for the confidence,” said the former Munster coach.

“I would not say it was a perfect performance, as somebody has said there are moments of perfection, but we have learnt a lot about ourselves. But to be fair today we had home advantage and they had a penalty come back off the posts (a late second-half effort by Ruan Pienaar).”

Kidney refused to accept that he had made an inspired choice in selecting 24-year-old Sexton ahead of O’Gara, someone he knows better than others as he was also his fly-half at Munster but who had a chequered Lions series against the Springboks in the summer.

“Who knows if we had had ROG (O’Gara) we might have won by more,” said Kidney with his usual wry humour.

“It was one of the calls you have to make. Hopefully today (Saturday) we have seen one of the up and coming fly-halves but we also still have a world class fly-half.

“This is about developing a squad for the 2011 World Cup. We want to have competition in all areas and I have to say with the work ethic we have developed it is going in that direction.

“It is extremely encouraging.”

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© 2008 AFP