Enjoying the action before the whistle blows

Odd the things you notice when you’re early.

Long before yesterday’s game in Páirc Uí Chaoimh began, for instance, the squelching underfoot as Bryan Phelan trotted was audible as high as the press box.

The clean, sweet contact as he put some practice frees over the bar from the halfway line also drifted up, the sound not quite coinciding with the action but slightly behind it, as though a television needed adjusting.