Is the novelty of American football in Ireland wearing off?

Lee Corso didn’t make the journey to Dublin this time but the veteran ESPN analyst could hardly contain himself on TV when he was asked for his memories of the original ‘Emerald Isle Classic’, played in a very different Lansdowne Road, back in 1988.

Corso was only a year into his career as a pundit after almost three decades patrolling the sidelines in a variety of college football coaching roles and the trip to Ireland was a cultural leap into the unknown for a man more familiar with life in the states of Maryland, Kentucky and Indiana.

A stadium standing amidst a residential neighbourhood knocked his socks off, the shrill roars of the natives when the opening kick-off soared into the sky tickled him terribly and the meal of boiled beef and potatoes the evening before the game was a gastronomic first.