Ireland coach Declan Kidney revealed his team will be adopting a more attacking philosophy after a try by Brian O'Driscoll in the last second of the game rescued a draw for the home side against an impressive Australia at Croke Park in Dublin Sunday.

Powerful forward play should have been enough to give victory to the Wallabies, who led almost continually after a third-minute try by Drew Mitchell.

But the Ireland captain marked his 100th Test cap with a try under the posts after Ireland's creaking scrum for once held up and scrumhalf Thomas O'Leary delivered a perfect pass for the Leinster man to skip over from close in.

Kidney expressed satisfaction with his side's mental approach to the game even if there were weaknesses in the front and back rows in particular.

"What I'm pleased about is that we tried things. We knew we had to go after Australia, that we couldn't just kick the ball down to them so that's what we did today and if we're going to advance we're going to have to put that in from time to time.

"We'll learn from today. It wasn't exactly what we wanted but it wasn't so bad either.

"The one thing you can't coach is attitude and we showed that in bucketfuls to come back after a fair chunk of the game behind. Some of it is a credit to Australia and some of it due to the pressure we put ourselves under.

"But we got a draw and it's one of those strange feelings. We're a bit numb. We're glad we haven't lost but a bit disappointed we haven't won.

"You're always hoping to hit the ground running and we didn't exactly do that we know there's plenty of areas we need to brush up on going forward.

"It covers the whole range: winning the ball, how to hang onto it. It seems to me we played a large chunk of the game in our won half, they won the field position battle.

"We may have had more possession but it was in our own half of the field. They played a very smart game keeping the pressure on us and we just got away with it at the end.

"But I'm pleased with the fact that we went for things. If we don't go for things we won't grow."

Miscommunication

Ireland captain O'Driscoll said there were 'pleasing aspects' to his team's performance despite gifting the tourists an early try after he failed to hold a poor Ronan O'Gara pass.

The talismanic centre said: "There was just a bit of miscommunication between myself and Rog [O'Gara] and we let them off to a great head start. It's difficult to play catch-up rugby against a good side and they're certainly that.

"We did well to get back into the game and we probably attacked a lot more than we had in the course of the Six Nations and we want to go after teams a little bit more because we feel we have the fire power to do so.

"It's just a matter of the ball didn't stick too many times today but we'll get better with each game we play.

"We haven't played together for six months and it's difficult to pick up where you left off and continue with winning ways, playing good rugby. But that game will set up well for next week [against Fiji]."

Ireland's struggles in the loose where largely down to the foraging of young David Pocock, playing in place of George Smith.

Speaking after receiving the man-of-match award, the 21-year-old said Ireland's resilience was not surprising.

"We're obviously very disappointed not to get the win but all credit to the Irish today. We watched the Six Nations campaign earlier in the year and we knew they were a very good team and all credit to them for sticking tough until the end," the Wasps open side said.

Front row teammate Stephen Moore said the draw felt like a defeat but he took encouragement from his team going within seconds of beating the Six Nations champions and maintaining an unbeaten record on tour.

"It's disappointing there's no doubt. I'm not going to hide that. It was a huge challenge for us and we came within a hair's breadth of winning the game. It was pretty quiet in the dressing room.

"I think Ireland are, from what I've seen, head and shoulders the best team this year anyway as far as the Six Nations goes.

"We can still go through Europe undefeated. That's the mindset we've got to have we've got to stay positive. We're still only half way through the tour really so we've got to keep our heads up and move on."