Ireland versus Wales was the last home Six Nations match and will be the first one back after pandemic restrictions were lifted.
Nobody knew on February 8th 2020 what lay in store when Ireland beat Wales 24-12 at the Aviva Stadium in front of a full house.
The first indication of the gravity of the Covid-19 pandemic was in March 2020 when the Ireland-Italy match was cancelled, much to the consternation of many rugby fans who thought the decision was over the top. Little did we know.
Last year’s championship, won by Saturday’s opponents, was held in empty stadiums and devoid of tension or jeopardy.
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Few places were as forlorn as Temple Bar during the pandemic. Many of the "wet pubs" were closed for 15 months straight, an unthinkable prospect before the pandemic turned the world upside down.
However, the crowds were back in Temple Bar on Friday evening and the pubs packed. The Welsh have always brought a big crowd across the Irish Sea for their biannual meeting with their Celtic cousins.
Dionne Munn from Cwmbran loves Ireland so much that she is not even going to go to the match and will watch it in the pub with some of her friends.
"We come every second year. One year Wales was playing Scotland in Edinburgh. We went to Edinburgh for the match and flew to Dublin the next day," she said.
“This is my fifth time. We were here in 2020 and then Covid kicked off. It’s the music, the people, the pub and I don’t care about the prices. I would love to come here and live.”
The Six Nations games are like the daffodils of the sporting calendar heralding the beginning of spring, but The Temple Bar in Temple Bar has kept the Christmas decorations up to celebrate the end of pandemic restrictions.
There was no talk of Covid-19 and no social distancing. It was like the last (almost) two years were a bad dream as successive groups of mostly male fans descended on the pub.
At 5pm it was jammed with Welsh fans raising their pints of Guinness and lustily singing the Welsh anthem Land of my Fathers.
Down in The Auld Dubliner there were a visiting party of 18 men from Caldicot in Monmouthshire all wearing "where's Wally?" tops and glasses. It helps that the red and white striped t-shirts are the Welsh colours too.
Hywel Woolf came with 47 of his friends from the Tredegar Ironsides club in the Welsh Valleys. They range from the early 20s to their mid-70s. Some are current players, other former one. They are all there for the craic having endured, like the rest of us, long lockdown.
“It is better now because of the last two years. It’s always special coming here,” he said.
“We are staying in Bray so we normally don’t come into Temple Bar, but we are here because of what happened during the pandemic.”
Everybody in his home has caught Covid-19 except him. “If I don’t catch Covid this weekend, I’ll never catch it.”
