Adam Byrne living his Ireland dream

Those who insist there is no such thing as a ‘friendly’ in Test rugby found their argument undermined on Saturday as a stadium slumbered and two teams went about their largely bloodless and perfunctory business.

This wasn’t on the scale of the countless non-events punters have been subjected to by their footballing counterparts. After all, the Republic of Ireland have managed to bore and bother in non-competitive fare against everyone from Oman to Brazil.

The clinical nature of the Irish first-half performance had a lot to do with the lack of tension and hum. As they had against South Africa two weeks before, the home team built the sort of lead that dispensed with any doubt before a late Puma rally that was too little too late.