It can’t have just been me who appreciated Lionel Messi that little bit more on Wednesday evening.

It’s been less than a week since a 26ft statue of Pharoah Ramses II, or Ozymandias as the Greeks liked to call him, was rescued from its ignoble resting place beneath a suburban Cairo slum and surrounded by dirty, running water.

MASTER MINDED may be odds on to claim his hat-trick in the Queen Mother’s Champion Chase this afternoon, but two men fielding Irish raiders believe that to be far from a foregone conclusion.