Riding an emotional rollercoaster from the comfort of the couch

The longest day. It’s going to be emotional. It’s also going to be arduous and attritional and draining. And that’s only the first 10 minutes from Cardiff. And that’s just for the spectators, not the players.

“Absolute carnage,” is Keith Wood’s prediction beforehand. He’s not wrong. After half an hour Johnny Sexton has limped off. By half-time Paul O’Connell, the moral and spiritual leader not simply of the Ireland team but also the entire Irish nation, is similarly hors de combat. Midway through the second half Peter O’Mahony, another of the main men, is buggied away (no sniggering, please – I said ‘buggied’) on, er, a buggy.

The TV3 panel somehow manage to get two minutes to themselves at the interval to discuss things. This is two minutes either side of a six-minute ad break and a five-minute ad break. Obviously revenue is important, but if the powers that be at the station have notions of supplanting RTÉ as the home of rugby debate they might want to reconsider this strategy.