Fantastique? Does that mean heartbreaking?

TWO POINTS is no longer the most dangerous lead when time is running out in Croke Park. Ireland were four up with time nearly up in yesterday’s historic Six Nations clash with France only to see Vincent Clerc score a sensational match-winning try.

Most of the 81,572 crowd went home unhappy with the 20-17 defeat. But not the occasion. Yes, there were French accents outside Barry’s Hotel, swapping deux Upper ‘Ogans pour trois dans le Cusack’. A lifetime of haggling wouldn’t prepare a tout for that. The stadium announcer welcomed everyone to Lansdowne Road early, but it’s hard to break the habit of one hundred and thirty years (how did they manage to lay on the rainbow before the game, though?).

Rugby fans will have to learn some Croker etiquette, mind, such as interrupting long before the end of Amhrán na bhFiann. Ireland’s Call was also played, and contrary to expectations it wasn’t heralded by four horsemen in the sky announcing the end of the world. The French showed a certain ignorance of procedure also, warming up at the Canal End: don’t they know the boys in blue always go to Hill ‘Seize’ before the game?