What's the point of the top competition now, the performance of the round and a strange fixture in Italy

As if being top of the planetary pile isn’t enough, Ireland can now claim to be global leaders in the hazardous art of keeping all 15 players on the field. Right now, nobody does it better.

O’Gara is the first to win the blue riband event as a player and head coach, in different countries.

Long after almost all his contemporaries ran out of steam and gave up the ghost, Johnny Sexton keeps climbing every mountain in European rugby.

A golden goal or try would have been a more satisfactory way of finding a winner, one which would have given the 40,000-plus crowd a still longer run for their money.

Not for the first time, the tournament itself is in urgent need of something special to start recovering some of the mystique and lustre lost in recent seasons.

At least Charlie Ewels could walk away from the scene of the crime on his own two feet, quite something considering he didn’t have a leg to stand on. It was more than could be said of James Ryan.

15 Michael Lowry (Ireland)  14 Alex Cuthbert (Wales)  13 Gael Fickou (France)  12 Jonathan Danty (France)  11 Yoram Moefana (France)  10 Marcus Smith (England)  9 ...

Now that France stand alone in the Grand Slam scheme of things, Ireland will need a hand from Scotland or Wales to help them win the Six Nations.

Once they finish their forensic dissection of Ireland putting the champions out for the count, the French management will be tempted to call their friends at the Foreign Legion.