Rugby World Cup: No excuses, Australia were outplayed, says Deans

A stony-faced Australia coach Robbie Deans offered no excuses for, and precious little analysis of, the Wallabies' shock 15-6 defeat by Ireland at the World Cup on Saturday.

The Australians, with their Tri-Nations proven pack and potent backline, were overwhelming favourites to win the match and Pool C but were blown well off course by a passionate Irish team playing in front of a noisy pro-Irish crowd at Eden Park.

"We were outplayed," Deans told reporters. "It doesn't really matter what elements you put it down to, we came here to play and to win and we came second.

"It was a very good Irish performance and they fully deserved their win," he added.

"The Irish gave us difficulty across the board. The Irish played more intelligently, they put us under pressure and profited from that, particularly in our area of the ground."

The Australians thought they had overcome their traditional Achilles heal when their pack matched the All Black and Springbok eights in the Tri-Nations and then held a powerful Italian scrum in their World Cup opener last week.

The Irish simply dominated them on Saturday, however, and five penalties against the Australian front row at scrum time told the tale of a tough night out for captain James Horwill and his fellow forwards.

"They put us under a lot of pressure, they are a good scrum, we knew that ... and they used it as a strength of theirs and it certainly got results for them," the lock said.

Neither he nor Deans were openly critical of referee Bryce Lawrence's calls and the coach instead delivered what was clearly a heartfelt and oft-repeated maxim.

"We have to live with the referees' calls and tonight we couldn't," he said. "Simple as that."

Deans also refused to use the loss of flanker David Pocock and hooker Stephen Moore to injury and illness, respectively, on matchday as an excuse.

"That's what preparations are for, to cope with those sorts of vagaries, they happen," he said.

The defeat means Australia are almost certain to be in the same half of the draw as defending champions South Africa and hosts New Zealand in the knockout stages.

Deans refused to accept that the result had radically altered Australia's chances of winning a third World Cup.

"It doesn't change anything, to be fair, the tournament remains the same," he said. "What we got tonight was an insight into what the World Cup is all about. At no point did we presume that we'd be successful and what the Irish brought to the table was exactly what's required to succeed in tournaments like this.

"In terms of looking ahead, that's what we have to add to our game if we hope to achieve anything in our time here."

Captain Horwill was also looking forward. "We're disappointed with the way we performed out there, that's a performance that's not like us, so we've got six days to make a difference," he said.

"We play the USA in Wellington on Friday and that's everything we're looking at now."