Peter Jackson: Ireland the mentality monsters with two XVs of Roy Keanes

This time around, Ireland are the ones the rest will hope to avoid, France included.

MENTAL STRENGTH: Jonathan Sexton of Ireland celebrates. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

And so to France for the expedition of a lifetime, a shot at eclipsing Italia 90 and changing a narrative once so absurd that it could have been written for Father Ted.

At the risk of sounding a discordant note amid the merriment over the Grandest of Slams, it does no harm to point out that when it comes to flopping at the World Cup nobody has done so as reliably as Ireland: the only contender to be counted on being counted out of every knock-out stage over the last four decades.