Neil Francis has used his most recent Irish Independent column to review the Champions Cup final, having called it a "two-star game" in his initial report on the game for the Sunday Indo.
This writer parsed the original piece waiting for Franno's smug evisceration of Teddy Thomas' ridiculous, title-costing error toward the end. Surprisingly, there was no mention of Thomas at all. Fair play to Franno, willing to rise abov- oh, wait, here's another column, and...yep, he's called Teddy "a clown".
This random running up his own arse cost his team the championship. He trotted back to his position on the right wing as if he had just put the cat out for the night.
Nakawara threw his arms in the air - I am not sure what "FFS" is in Fijian but I am pretty sure he uttered it. Yannick Nyanga and Ryan looked on in disbelief and Wencelas Laurent shook his head. Teddy didn't even notice how his pack reacted to his little adventure.
Elsewhere, Franno is deeply critical of referee Wayne Barnes. Johnny Sexton barely disguised his post-match frustration with Barnes, and Franno follows suit albeit with much more personal flak in which he calls Barnes a "narcissist".
In the era of celebrity referees - maybe it might have occurred to him that empathy was the key value here - if not with the players at least with the audience.
Barnes, a peerless narcissist, got his instructions from his masters - penalise anything that looks remotely like a head-high tackle. I could have sworn Cristiano Ronaldo was playing last Saturday the amount of players who were ducking into a tackle - the equivalent of diving.
Other than that Barnes was left to his own devices. It was the Wayne Barnes show - like a cockerel who thinks the sun has risen in the morning to hear him crow, blissfully unaware that 50,000 people were there to see a game of rugby.
The full column is well worth a whirl on the Indo's website.
