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.

Accounting for as much as one-quarter of the qualifiers made it highly unlikely that all four could be kept apart. Success brings its own kind of penalty and from now on, Irish teams will be obliged to bump each other off

They keep saying ad nauseum that there is nothing to touch the Champions’ Cup, the best club competition in the rugby world bar none. Try telling that to those who spent their Sunday lunchtime watching what happens when one champion team makes mincemeat of another.