King Brian rises above the Croke Park mediocrity

The final Croke Park battle between Ireland and England was more flat beer than romantic champagne

GOD SAVED the queen again at Croke Park on Saturday night, but on this occasion, nobody even batted an eyelid. With a potential Irish grand slam in the balance, the queen’s safety was of secondary importance. It was only the result that mattered, and BOD saved that.

There were no royals in or around the stadium, anyway – apart of course from the Royal Canal. But as Ireland’s captain, Brian O’Driscoll delivered a performance bordering on regal. More than anyone else, he was responsible for ensuring that England departed Ireland’s national sports shrine with a record of played two, lost two.

On a night when Ronan O’Gara seemed to have put his boots on the wrong way round, O’Driscoll even contributed a much-needed dropped goal.

He also scored Ireland’s only try, completing a hat-trick in Six Nations games to date. And he was intimately involved in several of the night’s most crunching tackles: either as the perpetrator or victim. His performance aside, there was little else about the game to cheer the recession-depressed crowd.

The second and final instalment of Ireland versus England at Croker was a microcosm of the historic relationship between the countries: ugly, often violent, and culminating in a hard-fought victory for the home side that was a lot less clear-cut than romantics would have liked.

Not that our former colonial overlords can be blamed for this. Although yet another two yellow cards on Saturday confirmed that, in their disciplinary record, Martin Johnson’s players are the sporting equivalent of the Black and Tans, they at least resembled the side of two years ago in lacking any real attacking threat

Having clearly grasped the importance of tradition in GAA headquarters, the visitors again confined themselves to a modest 13 points.

It was the home side that failed to read the script, falling 29 points short of the standard they set in 2007.

Despite O’Driscoll’s heroics, there was no repeat either of the free-flowing moves produced against the French. If that was champagne rugby, this was warm beer, and flat too.

Now in its last 12 months, the experiment of rugby in Croke Park has been a mixed success on the pitch. But it has certainly benefited both GAA and IRFU coffers.

The Oul’ Triangle went jingle jangle again on Saturday, recession or no recession, to the tune of yet another 80,000 crowd paying a typical €90 a ticket.

And contrasting as they were, the two games against England have set a remarkable statistic.

With a few minutes remaining, the Croke Park MC issued his usual “fógra do na gardaí agus na maoir”. It was time for them to take up their “end-of-match positions”, he said. End-of-era positions, he could have added, as Ireland closed the book on a rare 100 per cent success record against the old enemy.