Days to make the heart sing - Six Nations champions

THERE are very few endeavours that allow the human spirit to soar like sport does. 

Music and literature may challenge sports’ intoxications, but their soul-enriching experiences are on a different plane. They offer different comforts, maybe a deeper solace, and should be judged by other criteria.

Just two weeks ago, Willie Mullins blitzkrieged Cheltenham with eight of Ireland’s 13 Prestbury Park winners. This was a magnificent achievement, yet such is Mullins’s consistent excellence that National Hunt supporters were impressed rather than surprised. Some fans have become blasé about Rory McIlroy’s pre-eminence, as if it was entirely unexpected. The point being that we, even this small island, are not entirely strangers to international sporting success, but Saturday’s conclusion of the Six Nations Championship was in a different category.

Three games, one after the other, could not resolve the Championship until the very last seconds of the day’s third and final game. What a magnificent script, what a magnificent, spirit-soaring conclusion. Everyone involved in this Irish team — and the women’s victorious Six Nations Championship team too — from Joe Schmidt and Paul O’Connell to the most under-used squad member, can feel a deep sense of pride, but most of all the Edinburgh win has made sports’ greatest and eternal question — “Why not?” — relevant and alive. Roll on the autumn’s World Cup.

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