TV View: If that young fella, in or around 10 years of age, gets in touch with RTÉ, he might find himself on their rugby panel for the next Six Nations weekend. Spotted on his way to Lansdowne for yesterday's game, he was asked for his prediction.

"I think Ireland will score loads and Wales will score none because Wales are crap," he said.

He was almost entirely right, the only bit he got wrong was that Wales managed to score. Just the once, mind.

Meanwhile. "I have a feeling in my waters: I think Wales might win and Stephen Jones will have a blinder," George Hook predicted. And with that Jones hobbled out of the game after 18 minutes.

By full-time George wasn't pointing fingers, but he suggested that Gavin Henson, Jones' replacement, "was indisputably the most overrated player in world rugby".

Brent Pope was less harsh, suggesting that "Charlotte Church would have been more effective" on the field than her loved one. Perhaps, although one would surmise that every time she'd be in possession she'd be tackled by 15 purring Irish men.

Anyway, we proved to be rather inhospitable hosts to our Celtic cousins, players and supporters alike. They arrived here fleeing a civil war, and what happened?

They found themselves in downtown Fallujah on Saturday afternoon. Twenty-four hours later and they found themselves in another war-zone, this time at Lansdowne, and were routed. You'd imagine they'll be quite relieved to return home to the safety and comfort of that civil war.

Speaking of which. "Ireland thought they had a coaching crisis and then we trumped them," said Eddie Butler in the now famed debate on BBC Wales' Scrum V rugby show last week, which Grandstand treated us non-BBC Wales subscribers to on Saturday.

There were many highlights, not least Welsh captain Gareth Thomas turning up for the debate in combat fatigues, ie, a Motorhead T-shirt (as opposed to a Charlotte Church one).

Thomas, it seems, has been cast as one of the villains of the piece, the piece that saw Mike Ruddock ousted as Welsh coach. He repeatedly insisted that he and the players had nothing to do with Ruddock's departure, nor were they peeved, in any sense at all, by much of the credit for last season's Grand Slam being given to Ruddock.

"Is that an issue with you," asked Butler, who progressively tied Thomas in knots, "that Mike seems to have claimed too much credit?"

"OF COURSE IT'S NOT!," said Thomas.

Moments later: "What we need to remember here is that it wasn't just Mike who won the Grand Slam, who won all them games, we actually laced our boots up."

Butler smiled a kind of "I rest my case" smile.

Thomas, though, was increasingly irked by Butler and attempted to demonstrate how much he had sacrificed for his country.

"I have played for 11 years for Wales! I've given my everything! I've won a Grand Slam! I've broken my thumb!"

Jonathan Davies, sitting beside Thomas, said nothing, but the expression on his face read: "If all you've broken in 11 years playing for Wales is your thumb you've done well laddie."

To be honest, we were kind of thinking that too.

It was, to be blunt, all a bit cringe-inducing, and, honestly, if Thomas ever finds himself in court his barrister should see to it that he doesn't take the stand. The right to silence should, at times, be cherished as much as the freedom to, eh, defend oneself.

"Here's Paxman and his sidekick," said John Inverdale, introducing Butler and Davies after we'd seen Scrum V. Butler intimated that he had qualms about the conduct of the major players in the Welsh Rugby Union.

"They've treated every question with contempt," he said, "Steve Lewis (chief executive) has contradicted himself on several occasions, he's attempted to bully any interviewers who have come his way, and David Pickering (chairman) has actually gone one stage further than hectoring and badgering interviewers, he's actually started telling untruths, in particular to the BBC."

Crikey. As George Hook put it of the Grand Slammers, "only the WRU could turn gold in to dross", although Brent Pope and Conor O'Shea seemed to feel comparing the Welsh display with dross was, well, rough on dross.

As the line from Motorhead's, um, seminal Ace of Spades goes: "You know I'm born to lose, and gamblin's made for fools".

While recovering from his migraine, you wonder if this tune is on Gareth Thomas' iPod.