The Box seat: The Longest Day gets re-run in a marathon day of RTÉ rugby coverage
Italy make a bad finish, collapsing like a top-heavy tiramisu as Wales run in eight tries. For a few minutes we’re left feeling like Fianna Fáil on general election day 2011. The first count hasn’t yet been announced and already the tide has gone out.
Reviving a running gag of many years that hangs on the Italian army’s famed lack of aggression in World War Two a friend texts asking, “What level of resistance did Wales meet today?”
Just before your correspondent can zap back the required two-word answer – “virtually negligible” – the most utterly bizarre occurrence on what will prove to be a day of utterly bizarre occurrences materialises.
Italy, out of nowhere, conjure a try. Instead of winning by 48 points Wales win merely by 41.
“What does that mean in terms of the table?” George Hamilton, our man in Rome, wonders. Quite. “Conor O’Shea, get your logarithms out,” Tom McGurk demands. “We’ve got to beat Scotland by what?”
Conor, clearly top of his maths class back in the day at Terenure College, does his stuff with the abacus and comes back with a figure. Twenty-one. Not a piece of tiramisu but not impossible either. “We have a chance,” he agrees.
RTÉ’s experts are in no doubt as to What Must Be Done. Try and build the scores, suggests Conor. Look to have a cushion at half-time, orders Brent Pope. Get the foundations in place, commands Donal Lenihan.
And Ireland do, right from the off. Rome may not have been built in a day but the visitors go a long way towards razing Murrayfield in half an afternoon. An early try from Paul O’Connell, a subsequent one from Sean O’Brien and Joe Schmidt’s troops lead 20-10 at the interval. We have a chance.
After every score a little box pops up in the corner of the screen. Wales 53, Ireland X, England 37.
The Points Race, as RTÉ have billed their coverage, indeed. At half-time the box reads 53, 43, 37. We’re halfway there and – oh-ohhhh! — livin’ on a prayer.
Brent predicts that Scotland may fade in the closing quarter. Brent is proved correct. Come the final whistle the box reads Ireland 63, Wales 53, England 37. Ryle Nugent sums it up nicely. “Ireland have given themselves every chance of retaining the Six Nations. There’s no Grand Slam but championships are rarer than hen’s teeth from Ireland’s perspective.”
Twickenham. Oh Lordy. A giant basketball match with an oval-shaped ball. It’s your turn to bring it down the field and have a pot! Now it’s our turn to bring it down the field and have a pot! Presumably out of a profound sense of national embarrassment arising from 1798 and Thierry Henry our former gallant allies in Europe do their bit by having a cut, but in doing so they leave themselves wide open at the other end.
The tries are flying like snuff at a wake. It’s as though Ireland, having seen off the Welsh challenge, are fighting some rococo monster of Greek myth who no sooner loses one head – complete with hen’s teeth — than another head grows in its place.
England are 12 up at the midway stage and needing 15 more.
A nation looks up the number of its nearest coronary unit. “You have our permission to hide behind the couch in the half coming up,” says Tom gently, sensing the mood out there.
The longest day. The longest second half ever. England, needing a converted try and camped near the French line at the death, make a mistake. “France get the penalty!” Hugh Cahill screams. “Ireland are champions!”
The French play on. Hugh sounds like he’s having a heart attack and he’s not the only one. “Or are they?”
Hello, is that Mr Coronary Specialist? No, it’s okay. It really is over. Merci and, well, mercy. We can finally forgive the French for 1798, for Thierry Henry, perhaps even for Christine Lagarde.
Tom scrapes Conor, Brent and George Hook up off the floor.
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