Talk cheap in the fog of war

IT WAS so cold last Saturday evening in Croke Park that we had to rely on gossip about the world’s most famous golfer to keep ourselves warm.

Until the game kicked off, that is.

Whoever laid on the cloud that hung over the pitch for Ireland-South Africa deserves a bonus: the freezing fog gave the stadium a look of the San Siro on Milan derby days or, maybe more accurately, something of a battlefield in the American Civil War, artillery smoke stubbornly remaining after the last salvo.