TV VIEW:KEITH WOOD didn't exactly fill us with cheer in his pre-match analysis on the BBC, describing the "successful Irish team of the last decade" as "a cross between the A and E and an old folks' home". For those of us clinging to the hope that the limping wrinklies could give us one last Grand Slam fling, this was disheartening.

It was in sharp contrast to Tom McGurk’s sunny disposition over on RTÉ when he introduced us to the afternoon’s fare. “Who’s to say there isn’t more than a sniff in the nose, in the spring sunshine, of perhaps spectacular things to come for Ireland,” he beamed.

Needless to say, George Hook swiftly rained on Tom’s cloudless parade, although he was even more gloomy than usual on Saturday, in a “Bah Declan! Humbug Kidney!” kind of way. And that was before kick-off.

“My gut feeling is that we’re going to be baaaaaaaaaad, and we’re going to struggle to get a victory,” he said. You know what they say, even a stopped clock gets it right twice a day.

Conor O’Shea’s prediction was very close to being identical – “I think we’ll be sitting here afterwards unsatisfied with the performance but with a win, which is all Declan Kidney wants” – but such is his nature, he made it sound like a pleasant thing.

“Naaaaaa,” countered George, “I think it’ll be a huge struggle for us, for 80 minutes – we’ll be lucky to come out of this with a win.”

Come half-time George modestly sported the look of a vindicated pundit. “We’re like Lemmings going over a cliiiiiiiiiiiff,” he said, while Tom fiddled with his Vicks nasal spray, having lost the scent of spectacular things to come for Ireland.

Second half and that Italian try. Ah now.

“Brian O’Driscoll has grabbed his team underneath the posts,” said Hugh Cahill, which sounded painful, but a captain’s got to do what a captain’s got to do.

And then? Well, from here on in February 5th should be known as Ronan’s Day, perhaps even made a national holiday. Bless his drop kickin’ socks.

“A win is a win is a win, George,” said Tom, his nasal passages now clear as a bell.

“Ah yeah, they’ve won in Rome by two points, so what? A rubbish backrow, average scrum, no penetration in the back division. Beating Italy isn’t a reason to rejoice, it’s a reason to say rosaries for the next week when we play a real rugby team in the shape of France. An awful start . . . it was dirt poor.”

Conor and Brent Pope hadn’t quite the heart to unreservedly disagree, although they accepted Tom’s conclusion that a win is a win is a win, even if the performance was a bit alarming, alarming, alarming.

Mind you, George had castigated Kidney and O’Driscoll for being a touch too respectful towards Italy in their pre-match state of the rugby nation addresses, then lambasted his fellow pundits for bordering on being “disrespectful to an outstanding Italian performance” at half-time, before berating Ireland for only beating the same Italians by two points.

At least we brought the points home in our luggage, unlike the Scots after their trip to Paris. As the panel put it:

George: “Only the British could have 24 chickens and one sauce.”

Brent: “How many sauces do the French have?”

Conor: “Twenty-four.”

Tom: “How many chickens have you, George?”

George: (Ignores question). “It’s the difference between Paris and Birmingham. One is about love and music and excitement, the other . . .”

The gist, then, was that the French were finger lickin’ good.

Which, come to think of it, is how Chelsea folk felt about the signing of Fernando Torres last week. Alas, Sky Sports News chose to report on the transfer live from Liverpool’s training ground, while the reporter was surrounded by several dozen LFC devotees. “Cockney ****,” went up the cry about the, well, Spaniard, prompting our Sky man to apologise profusely.

No worries, these things happen. After all, the transfer had raised emotions to a Sky-ish level, stunning even limping wrinkly transfer deadline day veterans. As Chris Sutton put it about footballing vagaries, after yesterday’s Old Firm derby on Sky Sports, “you never know, as we all know”.

So, against whom did Torres make his Chelsea debut? "You couldn't make it up, could you," said Sky's David Jones, the channel's replacement for Richard Keys who was, possibly, back home leafing through The Female Eunuch.

How would Kenny Dalglish approach the game? “It wouldn’t surprise me if he springs a surprise,” said Jamie Redknapp.

He was right too, in the sense that Liverpool won. And Torres didn’t.

“What a waste of money,” sang the visitors. Unlike George, though, they shouldn’t count their chickens.