Peter Jackson: When the farewell doesn't turn out to be very fond

Cian Healy, Peter O’Mahony and Conor Murray will have to settle for two Grand Slams apiece instead of three and five Six Nations titles instead of six, a collection as colossal as the trio themselves. 

IRISH GOODBYE: Ireland's Cian Healy, Peter O'Mahony and Conor Murray. Pic: Dan Sheridan/Inpho

Had he been watching back home in Kingston, Usain Bolt would have winced with pain at the way the sporting gods conspired to destroy another farewell to the global stage.

An event designed as a triumphant salute to Irish rugby’s revered trio of centurions en route to one last Grand Slam had gone belly-up which, by cruel coincidence, was exactly how the world’s fastest man came to grief, flat on his back in London’s Olympic stadium.