Risteárd Cooper Column:One of this Ireland rugby team's most enduring qualities is how it forces you to ride the roller-coaster, particularly when you know the players and coach are fighting for their lives. Last Saturday's endgame was so deflating I was only just able for the post-match analysis with my sittingroom panel, which consisted of four "adults" interrupting each other. Sound familiar?
We may not have much international experience, but sure when did that ever prevent anyone from being on a panel?
As the game reached its unbearable conclusion we had convinced ourselves that for Ireland to steal victory might have been robbery, but it certainly wouldn't have been criminal. The unforced errors coupled with some pretty awful luck conspired to make it all the more agonising.
It's difficult enough to play France in Paris, but when the ball bounces like an oval for us and a sphere for them (on top of an outrageous conveyor belt of new talent) it seems like your man who's supposed to be controlling things from above is taking the Michel.
Despite Ryle Nugent's incisive observation that "when you're that good, you're that good" (spending too much time around Ireland's coach perhaps - by the way was, I hearing things or did Nugent refer to a section of the crowd as the "soft-prawn-sandwich brigade"? If so may I ask, what is soft prawn and does it have a plot?) - Cédric Heymans's early second-half try was pretty stinky for Ireland and a genuine kick in the rocks for Brian O'Driscoll.
Bad enough that he got it straight in the undercarriage (matron!) but the fact that he deflected it perfectly into the path of electric-legs Heymans was verging on cruel.
No need for that, I thought to myself. It's one thing to score a try but do you have to do that to our captain as well?
In preparation for the match with Scotland it might be an idea for our outside backs to purchase some of those orange boots (the ones with the small jet engines in them) Vincent Clerc and Heymans wear.
Surely all the Ulster players wouldn't have a problem with that.
Maybe that would be enough for them and we wouldn't have to sing Ireland's Call any more. If only a few more of them could manage to get on the team.
Speaking of which, when the former Unionist politician Ken Magennis last week accused the IRFU of being in contravention of the Good Friday agreement by dint of Ireland not singing God Save the Queen at all "home" internationals in Belfast, I thought, ah! Ken is cracking a joke here.
No, no. No joke. Even though he has the reputation for being a bit of a prankster and a possessor of the kind of light-hearted banter we've come to associate with Ulster Unionists over the years, this time he was stoney-faced.
Sorry if I appear a little confused by his suggestion, but is that not a bit more than a compromise? That would mean a man from, say, Bruff, Co Limerick, would be expected to stand in a green jersey and sing "that" anthem before playing for his country. Get out of that garden, Ken!
Anyway I'm sure the IRFU will handle the matter with great diplomacy, transparency and candour. If the recent Genesis report is anything to go by they might even employ a specialist "anthem" coach (to be appointed by Eddie O'Sullivan, of course. Twink maybe? Or Tracey Piggott?).
How about God Save the Queen to the tune of Ireland's Call sung as Gaeilge? Now that's what I'd call a compromise. A bad one, but perhaps not as bad as the current one.
The unpredictability of sport is one of its greatest appeals, but if "experts" lived or died on the basis of their ability to predict results then the RTÉ panel would be long since pushing up the daisies. Apart from the silver fox with the Kiwi accent, that is.
It seems that while Ireland may have turned a corner, the RTÉ panel are so stuck in a cul-de-sac of self-satisfaction they've convinced themselves they're the sole reason Eddie O made the selection changes for last Saturday. Never mind the 50-odd hacks and pundits who were saying the same things during the World Cup.
"This panel asked for changes and we got them, what more do you want George?" asked Tom McGurk, who at times resembles an alickadoo from the 1980s clinging onto the corner of the clubhouse bar, with his "specially for the ladies" wink, barking banalities at those who listen and spouting yollick at those who speak.
No wonder Eddie O makes so few changes if, when he does, George Hook gets the credit for them.
If you switch over to BBC, however, it's an unrelentingly dull affair. Nick Mullins commentates, Phillip Mathews ruminates and John Inverdale speculates.
My sittingroom panel concluded our chat by celebrating the impending arrival of a certain Italian into our lives and the simultaneous banishment of Terry "Gordon Bennett" Venables, who probably would have summed up last Saturday with his usual philosophical gravitas.
"At this level you can't be five points down when the final whistle blows, and expect to win rugby matches."
Ah, what might have been! Welcome, Signor Trapattoni and Liam "Lime" Brady.
