Inspirational skipper Brian O'Driscoll saluted the Irish forward pack for dominating the Wallabies and building the platform for one of Ireland's greatest victories at the World Cup on Saturday.

The fighting Irish exerted relentless pressure on the fancied Australians and won a tryless struggle 15-6 to take charge of Pool C and pitch the Tri-Nations champion Wallabies into a potential quarterfinal with defending champions South Africa.

Ireland broke through for their first World Cup win over Australia in five meetings, two of them heart-breaking one-point defeats in 1991 and 2003.

But O'Driscoll, who spoke passionately during the week about Ireland needing to raise their game after an indifferent lead-in to the tournament, praised the work of the Irish eight in getting on top of their Australian counterparts.

"It's difficult to win games when your pack are second-best and there was no doubt today that our pack laid the platform for the victory, that is unquestionable," O'Driscoll said.

"They backed up what they said and they felt that the tight five needed to front up and our backrowers were immense and just gave us an opportunity to play territory and get ourselves into situations where we could kick points and there were some phenomenal turnovers as well.

"They were definitely the ones that put us in a position to win the game and I've no problem in giving them the credit they deserve for that," he added.

O'Driscoll said the job was only half-done for the tournament despite scaling the heights to topple the Wallabies, who were crowned Tri-Nations champions only last month.

"We were mentally in a place where we felt we owed ourselves a big performance as much as we owed one to the Irish public," he said.

"It's right for us to deliver it but it's to be enjoyed but you're got to use that as a stepping stone as well to deliver a level of consistency and that's where we've struggled in the past.

"It's a good win, but I'm not sitting here with the Webb Ellis Cup beside me, it's a win and we're in a pool stage and we've got to get four wins.

"Yes, it's great because we've done something we haven't done before but let's not over-sell it too. It's a means to an end and we have to accept that as it is and enjoy the moment, but not get lost in the moment."

The victory takes Ireland to eight points in their pool, three ahead of the Wallabies with matches to play against Russia and Italy.

AFP