Am I the only one on this couch who feels like that World Cup quarter-final loss happened a rainy week ago? When Joe Molloy tells us that it has actually been 15 full weeks and 6 days since he brought our country to its knees, you conclude that time is passing at an almighty rate of knots. There was only one. “But I'm not going to dwell on that loss right now,” Joe promised. “Because Ireland will lose again.”
There is only so much time left to mourn, and then time to recover. And the team's Six Nations head-to-head record has allowed Ireland to slowly ease back into the game, giving them the chance of an opener in Marseille. It's old, right?
Andrew Trimble keeps Matt Williams' Virgin Media pundit's seat warm as Matt heads to Marseille's Stade Vélodrome, saying: “It feels like we're finally in the deep end.” Ta. “How's the mood?” Joe asked him. “Hey, I can't believe it,” he replied, likening it to a Taylor Swift concert.
And in a column in Friday's Irish Times, he likened La Marseillaise to “Jon Bon Jovi crossed with AC/DC, fronting the Rolling Stones and having Springsteen as a stage guest.” Matt is clearly keen to perform with Hot Press.
Back in the studio, the committee are looking for a hot press from Ireland themselves, and if they can put pressure on France early on, the Marseille crowd will turn on the home team and possibly even call for a guillotine. I thought there would be.
Still, they were very cautious when it came to predicted times. Shane Hogan: “French, but maybe Irish.” Andrew: “French, but maybe Irish.” Rob Carney: “French, but maybe Irish.”
It was the granddaddy of all bets, but Virgin's audience was infinitely more decisive. When Joe asked them to vote on 'Who will win the Six Nations?', the poll found that 66% fewer chose Ireland and 65% fewer chose Wales on the first count. But the Welsh will not be half as excited when they come to Dublin on Sunday week.
But that's for another time, and this Friday night, the world's attention was on France. Now it's time to let go of the pain from the World Cup and move on. Tommy Martin, hello?
“When I'm back on French soil, I can't help but think back to last autumn,” he told Andy Farrell in a pre-match chat, and Andy seemed to know what was about to happen. He was moving his eyebrows.
“This is your first match since the World Cup quarter-finals, do you think your team needs to put in a great performance to quell the ghosts of that night?”
“We don't have any ghosts,” Andy said, and with that he took his leave, hell-bent on scaring the daylights out of the French.
Hymn. The quiet Irish call suggested that Andrew's theory that rugby fans had no money left to return to France after the World Cup – stop laughing behind their backs – might have been true. La Marseillaise? Mother of God. It was like Jon Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift and Echo and the Bunnymen rolled into one.
But once the game started, Ireland found themselves very good, with a few tries in the first half, a couple of Ole Ole Ole, and a section or two of the field coming from the stands, with Ireland's All rugby fans suggested otherwise. broken.
Although France were down to 14 men, they scored a try just before half-time and made the game a bit more interesting than we would have liked.
As Andrew says, “The French are unpredictable.” But Matt was fine. “A soufflé can't rise twice. France hasn't risen at all,” he said. For those of us who have never been able to make a soufflé, a dagger has pierced our hearts.
“This game isn't over yet,” he warned, but… “If Ireland continue like this, this could be one of their greatest wins ever.”
Latter half. try. Good luck, Calvin Nash, good job. try. Paul Gavrilags, bad guy. Give it a try, Dan Sheehan. Then Ronan Kelleher threw the dying fifth point. Dave McIntyre pointed out that the “French resistance” had collapsed. controversial. Jack Crowley added the conversion and he was 38-17 and if he pinched himself it would be black.
Come Full Time, Virgin's answer to 'Who will win the Six Nations?' The polls were pretty conclusive. Ireland? “110 percent.” Conclusion? Our guys are pretty good.