On a bus journey out to north county Dublin the other day, hardly an area known as a hotbed of rugby, a couple of young men in the seat in front of me were getting quite agitated in their discussions about the following day's World Cup final. After four weeks of insipid marketing off the field and rather anaemic play on it, it appeared that Neil Ruddock's friends, the French, had finally brought the whole shindig to life.
And, on final day itself, the suspicion that some sort of bug had finally struck was aroused. Half an hour before the kick-off (40 minutes as it later transpired) as I nipped in for some lollies to keep the kids quiet during the match, the counter-hand in the local supermarket manfully managed to get a decent reception on the portable television beside the cash till.
A sense of deja vu, Italia '90 and such times when TVs appeared in the strangest places, hit home; and the thought occurred, "better get home quickly", this being the last great sporting occasion of the Millennium and all that. Not one to be missed.
Of course, the fear that the French had already played their final ran as a dangerous undercurrent in much of the pre-match talk. As early as Thursday night, after the third-fourth place play-off between South Africa and the All Blacks, David Kirk on Eurosport was warning that the French challenge in the final "depends on which side of the bed they get out." Which seemed like an amazing thing to say, really.
But, no, on Saturday afternoon, the UTV commentary team of John Taylor and Steve Smith were thinking along similar lines and almost fell short of wondering how much garlic the French players had managed to consume in the pre-match meal.
"The question on everyone's minds is, can France produce another performance like last week (against New Zealand, it goes without saying)?" asked JT. "Or was it a once-off?" He left the second question hanging for a number of seconds, which was a bit worrying because he normally doesn't leave too much to the imagination.
His co-commentator must have been out for a quick coffee (French?) when all this was going on because less than two minutes later Smith was talking on similar lines. "People have been saying all week, can they (the French) repeat what they did last week," said Smith. You could almost hear Taylor turn to him in the commentary booth and say "I just said that, think up your own lines".
Whatever about the state of Irish rugby - and there are rumblings already that it really isn't that bad after the way that our conquerors Argentina played subsequently - there is no lack of passion among our television pundits. Top of the cognoscenti must be Ciaran Fitzgerald who has a tendency to tell it as it is but with a passion that suggests he must have played some rugby in his time. He did, didn't he? Only kidding, but the French could have done with some of his blood-and-thunder approach when the game did get under way.
Most of the pundits, admittedly, opted for an Australian win. "I'd love to see France win," said Fitzy, and you could tell he really meant it, "but I don't think they will. If the Australians can get possession, then they have enough talent to make it pay." And, of course, he was right.
Still, the French weren't lying down too easily - at least not in the first half when it appeared that maybe they had managed to get out of the right side of the bed. "He's like something out of a mummy's tomb," observed the man on Eurosport when French flanker Olivier Magne played on with a bandage wrapped around his face. Next thing you know, David Beckham will be doing the same.
But Eurosport analyst David Soul observed as the men from Down Under started to get the upper hand towards the end of the first half that "winning is a national sport in Australia," and the sense that the Southern Hemisphere team would win was very much evident at half-time, even if Tom McGuirk in the RTE studio insisted the match was on "a knife-edge."
The RTE panellists didn't seem so sure, George Hook (who'd had his crystal ball out six weeks ago in predicting an Australian win, he reminded us), Brent Pope and Fitzgerald all sticking by their guns in nominating an Australian victory. "There is a lack of discipline on behalf of the French," said Fitzy.
As the second half progressed, such was very much the case and Taylor on UTV informed us at one stage that the French "have got to climb Mont Blanc," which would have been an easier task than beating the Aussies, one thought.
By the time Owen Finegan crashed his way over for their second try - "Go on man," yelled Taylor when it looked like the Australian was going to stop and let someone else do the hard bit - it was all well and truly over, although Jim Sherwin on RTE reminded us that his parents, who hail from these parts, "must be very proud." At least one rugby player with Irish blood knows what it's like to win something.
There wasn't much blood and thunder in Valderramma for the World Golf Championship. In fact, Dougie Donnelly on the BBC couldn't get over how relaxed the whole thing was. "Can you believe how relaxed it is," he asked one player after another. The player interviews were crucial to the Beeb because, as Steve Ryder informed us on Thursday, they were taking the pictures from ABC who "have quite a lot of ad breaks".
"We hope it's not too disjointed for you," added Ryder, thinking of all the couch potatoes. And, to be honest, the coverage was all a bit disjointed with the BBC commentators resorting to banal remarks during some of the ABC breaks. "You could almost get a suntan," an apparently uninterested Howard Clark told us at one stage as the cameras diverted from the golf to the sun shimmering on the water with the Rock of Gibraltar in the distance.
Scott Hoch put the tournament into some sort of context when he told us that it was "a bonus tournament", and that it "shouldn't really count towards the money-list". Which made you wonder what John McHenry would have thought of some tournament players effectively turning their noses up at a $5 million tournament. McHenry has decided to quit the tour scene and, on The Late, Late Show on RTE 1 on Friday night, he told Pat Kenny that golf is essentially a "selfish game, self consuming".
Golf widows have known that for years but McHenry is one of the genuinely nice guys of professional golf and that came across in the interview with Kenny. Even golf widows will wish him well in his new enterprise which, he told us, would be golf-related and possibly in the area of developing young talent.
