Peter Jackson: All evidence points to a widening gap separating Ireland from the rest

Andy Farrell's men laid down a marker as they began life with Johnny Sexton.

Ireland players including Tadhg Furlong, left, celebrates after Dan Sheehan scores their side's fourth try at the Stade Velodrome in Marseille. Picture: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

A forensic examination of the weekend’s events in Marseille, Rome and Cardiff would have left neutral experts the world over asking the same rhetorical question: "Can anyone possibly stop Ireland?" Not on the evidence of the Six Nations’ opening round, one like no other for reasons beyond a slamming on a scale of grandeur not witnessed in living memory. Never, from an Irish perspective, has one team appeared to be so far ahead of the rest.

The verdict is based almost as much on what didn’t come to pass elsewhere as what did in Marseille, the location for part of a €90million multiple Oscar-winning crime blockbuster which Peter O’Mahony’s crew dared to re-shoot and rename: The French Disconnection.