Ireland - with 11 frontline players in the sickbay, including talismanic captain Brian O'Driscoll (shoulder) and British & Irish Lions lock Paul O'Connell (hand) - blew hot and cold in their final autumn international last weekend.

Yet four second-half tries saw them run out comfortable 43-12 winners over Romania in the end.

O'Sullivan admitted his side's first win of the season was undoubtedly ''a good day'' - most notable for young Ulster centre Andrew Trimble's brace of tries - but there is still much work to do on Ireland's new ''expansive'' rugby before Italy pay Lansdowne Road a visit on February 4.

O'Sullivan said of the Romanian win: ''What did I learn? I suppose I learned the positives - we've got some young players with a bit of experience now.

''Andrew Trimble has two good caps under his belt. Denis Leamy and Johnny O'Connor are coming on. Gordon D'Arcy is coming back to form after a very difficult year.

''I learned that our defence has improved week after week. Our scrummaging has improved. We are trying to play a more expansive game and hold on to the football but we have to be a lot more accurate.

''I think we're doing the hard job of actually causing problems for the defence but we're careless at the key moment of putting in the key passes.

''If we're going to be successful we're going to have to be more clinical in those situations.''