Risteárd Cooper Column:Shuffling and shrugging out of Croke Park last Saturday it felt as though we'd just left a party in a splendid venue where we'd had great craic last year with nearly all the same people; we knew the hosts had a great cellar, but this year anytime they opened a nice bottle of wine they dropped it.
It was a remarkable occasion for its lack of atmosphere and I don't remember another sporting event involving an Ireland team where you could sense the home crowd pondering the possibility that losing might ultimately bring about the best result.
Two fellas in front of me thought we all needed a song to lift the spirits. One shakily started: "Low lie the fields of Athenry . . ." The other joined in: "Where once we watched the small free birds f . . . (cue an Ireland error) . . . for f*** sake!"
And that was that.
Maybe a 2 o'clock kick-off doesn't help, but I don't think that was the issue here. If they're looking at sludge, even 75,000 people huddled together will soon begin to drift towards thoughts of putting up those shelves in the jacks, the latest Sugababes video with the mmm, yes, or that eejit on last night's Late Late Show.
Maybe I'm on my own there, but the feeling of listlessness was palpable.
However, amid all the head-scratching, eye-rubbing, watch-checking and yawning there were some magical moments from Ireland, none more so than the superb try made by the lad O'Gara.
With the white head bandage, Rog bears a stunning resemblance to Kevin Bacon in the mid-80s teen flick Footloose, and that certainly added to the spectacle. I was hoping he might bring on his leg-warmers for the second half but he must've forgotten to stuff them in his kitbag. It would certainly have kept the Italians guessing more than any backline moves in evidence on Saturday.
I wonder what Eddie would have said to that? Surely he'd be willing to give anything a go at this stage: "Okay, Rog, stick on the leg-warmers, but if it backfires it was nothing to do with me. Okay? After the match I'll just say it was something we tried in training. Sometimes these things come off, sometimes they don't - the usual guff."
After the match Eddie O had the expression of someone who had just been woken up from a terrible nightmare only to be told it was not only true but was all his fault. It can't be pleasant having a spotlight stuck in your face while answering 100 loaded questions featuring the words "resign", "will" and "you". Even his hair looked shocked, as if he'd been hit repeatedly over the head with a mallet. I suppose he had really - a Nick Mallett.
Maybe this is why in his post-match chat he came out with gems such as "When we play France we'll be playing a different team on a different day." I know the questioners aren't always the sharpest, but surely anyone who didn't know that should resign. Doh! Don't mention the war!
As the seven replacements went through their warm-up drills on the side of the pitch, a voice from the crowd roared, "I don't know what you're warming up for, Paddy."
The punter was right, of course, Paddy Wallace was the only one of the seven not to get a sniff. About 15 minutes after the final whistle, with the stadium deserted, Wallace cut a lonely figure going through his paces with fitness coach Mike McGurn.
If the players being selected are having confidence issues, God knows what must be going through his head.
I would wager that if O'Gara gets hurt in Paris, he's more likely to be replaced by Tony Buckley than Paddy Wallace.
Under O'Sullivan's guidance, Ireland have never won in Paris, and you'd have to think that, given the circumstances, if they were to do so on Saturday it would be the greatest - certainly the most unexpected - result of his career.
The enforced changes in the backline - specially Trimble for D'Arcy - will have to work, but at least it should add some freshness and the element of surprise, in that the French won't know what Trimble's going to do - but maybe neither will O'Driscoll.
To answer the calls for Dempsey's head - in order to accommodate a back three of Murphy, Bowe and Kearney - would be hazardous in Paris.
As it is, Kearney's pace on the wing is a concern, though, at least, he won't be directly up against that breaker of Irish hearts, Vincent Clerc. Then again, he'll hardly be having a picnic against the rampaging juggernaut that is Aurélien Rougerie, whose very name sounds big.
But hats off to Dempsey, even if he has the silliest try-scoring dive in the game - a sort of leap in the air, all limbs extended until he lands like a slain starfish. He can do whatever mad thing he likes if he scores the winning try in Stade de France, but I fear that's as likely to happen as the FAI doing the country proud.
Eddie summed up the whole situation when he said recently, "Even a stopped clock tells the correct time twice a day" - a line borrowed from, among other places, the 1986 cult classic film Withnail and I - and we all know what Eddie meant by that now, don't we? Well, don't we?
