Perhaps it's a portent of better things, or at any rate a better game. Unlike the corresponding pre-match scenario last week, when the wind whistled through the media tent in the West Stand car park and almost made the coaches inaudible, the sun shone brilliantly outside yesterday and Eddie O'Sullivan could be heard clearly.

"I think the forecast is that it might even be a wee bit better," he said. "There's a breeze from the south which is reasonably strong, but nothing to worry about.

"But I believe the forecast is for less wind and maybe some sunshine, so I'll look forward to that if we can get it."

No less than Eddie Jones, if O'Sullivan was coming under growing pressure, he certainly wasn't letting on.

Reading where one questioner was going with this line of comparison, he pre-empted the question by joking: "From you?"

"Of course I'm under pressure in this job. It's a results job. We've lost one game this season, and we've 10 more to go, so I'm hopeful that our record at the end of it will be pretty good. But I have to look at it a game at a time, and all I can do is prepare the team."

Looking ahead to this game he described it as another tough one. "It's a game they want to win very badly, and it's a game we want to win badly, so that does heighten the intensity of it, and bring an edge to it for both sides.

"But I wouldn't think at this moment in time I should be worrying beyond tomorrow. It's another game we want to win."

While his Australian counterpart was throwing in two new props "at the deep end", O'Sullivan commented: "They obviously wouldn't be high on experience, but at the same time Eddie must feel they're up to it, to put them into a Test game.

"Everybody has to win their first few caps and see how it goes, but I'm not expecting them to be suddenly weakened by it, and I believe as well - because we don't know a lot about these lads - that they're strong around the pitch as well."

While O'Sullivan said it would be foolish not to exploit any apparent advantage were it to materialise, he added: "For us the key areas are the things that we didn't do well last week. We put up our hand and say we weren't accurate with the football and defensively we made some mistakes as well.

"So if we can defend better than we did last week, and show more composure on the football I think we're going to get a much better performance."

Despite their run of seven defeats the Australian scrumhalf and captain George Gregan conveyed an ultra-positive mood within the Wallaby camp, emphasising this by using the adjective repeatedly.

"We're aware that we're not that far away from playing

really well. There's a really positive mood within the camp, the training has been good and the preparation has been excellent.

"Ireland had a big loss last week against the All Blacks and they'll be looking to get stuck into us," added the world's most capped player. "But we're evolving in a positive way. Once we turn the corner and get a good, positive result that would add to the good work we've been doing.

"It's been a challenging process, but there's been good support from within the team in terms of leadership and the work ethic has been fantastic."