Like all the best weekends, this one began early on Friday, with Hugh Farrelly's bizarre broadside at ... the internet. Whether it was message-board hysteria or rugby bloggers he was having a swipe at wasn't fully clear, but one thing was for sure - nobody's opinion was as important as Hugh's, because his is printed in a newspaper (sic). Some of these online guys just allow their own provincial ties to colour everything, and Hugh would never descend into that sort of carry-on.
On to Saturday, it's the am, it's Ireland's home debut in the Six Nations and (surprise, surprise) it's all optimism from Gerry. It's time to build a fortress, he says. There's no chance of any comment on the lineup, although he does spend an entire page talking up Conor Murray's footwork, rather unfortunately, in the light of what will happen later.
After lunch, on to RTE, and it's all rather tense. Hooky can hardly claim Ireland are going to lose after bombastically declaring that this was the "worst Italian team he has ever seen" so he contented himself with looking grumpy. Shaggy provided the best (as usual), worrying that Ireland had over-trained and could start slowly, and said Dorce and Fez were due performances. He was closest on winning margin as well, but given they went 9 (Popey), 12 (Hooky) and 15 (Shaggy), it's not much to crow about. Hugh Cahill introduced some levity when Mr Joubert came out: he said Craig vigorously polices the offside line at the breakdown - it would be interesting to get Thierry Dusautoir's thoughts on that.
Despite Hooky declaring it worse than the Wales performance at half-time, he blotted his copybook at full-time by maintaining Bowe only went to centre because Dorce got injured - maybe he was at the buffet for the 5 minutes between those two events. With nothing to grump about, and Deccie even getting praised for use of the bench, it was over to BBC for the hype.
We gradually nodded off as cliches took over. Wales need a platform to release their backs .... England need ball carriers ... If Wales don't get the ball wide, they are in trouble ... England are callow in the 8-9-10 channel. Yawn. We woke up when Corpulent Jerry said he was very much looking forwards to the Roberts-Manu collisions - Ooooooooooooooohh!!!
Nothing incisive followed - no-one panned the video ref for bottling it, Courtney Lawes' appalling carrying technique was ignored, and everyone seemed happy. England played well for the first time in a year and Wales won - what's not to like? Over on RTE, the lads were playing their favourite record - the Genuine Number 7 (TM), a phrase that is rapidly sweeping the nation. Yes, Sam Warburton is pretty good, no we don't have a Natural Openside (C) in the team but no, Peter O'Mahony isn't one either.
Over coffee and croissants (aside: wouldn't it be great if Le Gerry did a press review over an espresso in the plaza, James Richardson style?), we perused the Sunday's - the ST eschewed an "Italian Job" headline in favour of "La Dolce Vita", and differed with Tony Ward when declaring Bob Kearney man of the match. Ward had gone with Sexto, who, strangely, plays the same position he did. O'Reilly's ratings were questionable in some cases - we thought Dorce and Fez deserved better, and Paulie's 8 probably needs to be tempered if you subscribe to the view that a shambolic lineout isn't all the hookers fault.
Sunday's game passed without too much hysteria (Hook was absent). Everyone agreed France will be better next week, but the sense was that Ireland will have nothing to fear, though there was some trepidation about the much-hyped speed of the first 20 minutes. By far the biggest gaffe of the afternoon was Tom McGurk's outfit - biscuit jacket, pink shirt, lilac tie - a thoroughly eyewatering combo - maybe that's what fasionable in Tyrone these days.
Meanwhile, a video of Gerry giving his triumphant views just outside the Aviva went up on Sunday. He was cock-a-hoop after the match - everything is rosy, everyone was great, Deccie is infallible, the bench made a big impact, even Conor Murray was brilliant. Eoin Reddan wasn't in fact miles better than him, merely fortunate to come on at the exact moment the Italians became tired, so he just looked better.
His finest moment came when he pre-emptively defended an unchanged selection, and he thinks Ireland are in better nick for Paris than they were two weeks ago ... when he gave them a 40% chance of winning. Are they favourites now, Gerry??
