Ireland

Mercurial Australian flyhalf Quade Cooper inspired his team to hold off a spirited, but disjointed, Ireland 22-15 in a one-off Test in Brisbane, but captain Rocky Elsom admitted his team will not go into the Tri-Nations next month as favourites.

Cooper scored a brilliant solo try on the stroke of half-time and kicked a brace of penalties as the Wallabies made amends for their narrow defeat to England in Sydney last week.

But the Wallabies' error-strewn performance against a touring side playing their last game of a long season will not cause Tri-Nations rivals New Zealand and South Africa any sleepless nights.

"We've got a lot of work to do," Elsom admitted in his post-match reaction.

"The Tri-Nations is the most difficult tournament in the world, so we have a lot of work to do.

"We just weren't sharp enough and not on the same page. I think when we played Ireland last year we played a hell of a lot better and came away with a draw."

Wallaby coach Robbie Deans was happy that the team closed out a big game - Australia had trailed 11-15 at one point - particularly in the light of last week's defeat against England.

"That's something we're trying to master, and didn't last week, so the boys worked their way through an awkward contest," Deans said.

"We played a lot of rugby and deserved to win, clearly we're frustrated we couldn't produce a little bit more."

The most pleasing aspect for Deans was the performance of his inexperienced front row who more than held their own to silence their critics.

"It was a dominant scrum," said Deans.

"Obviously it was an improvement and these blokes [rookie front row forwards] continue to grow."

Ireland tried hard throughout and were not afraid to attack from anywhere on the field, but made too many mistakes and handed the ball over far too often to mount any pressure.

After leading 16-15 at the break, Australia dominated the second period as the Irish began to tire.

The Wallabies scored two tries and kept their own line intact, but they had almost all the ball in the second half and probably should have won by a bigger margin.

"I think we definitely felt we got on top of them in the end," Elsom said.

"Sometimes in those types of games the scoreboard can really help you when they know they are out of it - you can see it in the way they move around the field, and at the end of the game it felt like that.

"You could see they thought it was slipping away from them."

Downcast Irish captain Brian O'Driscoll agreed with Elsom that the Irish had fallen away in the second half.

"It did feel that we were doing a hell of a lot of defending and not so much attacking [in the second half]," he said.

"We just made it hard for ourselves by not holding on to the ball ... and when we did get some possession we gave it away with some uncharacteristic errors."