Have you ever seen the like? Of course you haven’t. Were you stretched by the end of it? Of course you were.
But come the weekend’s conclusion, if you lived that long, we were dripping in silver, Kings and Queens of European rugby.
(Spare a thought, though, for those with the task of looking after VIP arrivals at Dublin airport on Sunday: “Jaysus, man the barricades again – another humongous squad arriving with a big cup. Over.”
The women's path to victory proved somewhat more comfy, the only fright the team endured in Clyde the moment a somewhat cacophonous recording of Ireland's Call burst from the speakers, with Animal from The Muppets, by the sounds of it, on drums. Thereafter, they shoulder to shouldered Scotland in to the middle of next week and were Six Nations champions once more.
The lads, though, suffered – how do we put this? – a testing Saturday, starting with Wales’ pulverization of Italy and then that Twickenham ding dong after they’d done their thing in Edinburgh.
‘Least loved’ list
By the time the odyssey was over, the box thingie had recorded seven hours, 34 minutes of rugby coverage, but that’s actually how long it felt between Yoann Huget tippy-tapping that penalty, rather than hoofing it in to touch, and the final whistle. It was, in fact, just the 26 seconds, but they were 26 seconds during which Huget overtook Cromwell and Thierry Henry in Ireland’s “least loved” list.
As the RTÉ commentary pair asked, not unreasonably:
Ralph Keyes: "WHAT ARE THEY DOING?"
Hugh Cahill: "WHAT ARE THEY DOOOOOOING?"
Yoann? If England scored in those 26 seconds, then [deleted by legal department, guillotine threats not acceptable].
Seven-ish hours earlier Tom McGurk told us to cancel the dog walking for the day, but it seemed safe to take the mutt for a wander because such were Wales’ first-half struggles they were hardly going to score enough to trouble our points-difference calculator.
Back home.
Fido: “Good bread of heavens!”
“Are all your balloons burst, Mr Hook?” asked Tom now that Wales seemed home and hosed.
“Nooooooooo,” said George, in a where there’s life there’s hope way.
Hope? Come full-time we were overflowing in it. As Neil Delamere said of Seán O’Brien, “I’d imagine tackling him like must be like running full tilt into a dolmen”. And as for that try-saving effort on Stuart Hogg: henceforth, March 21st shall be St Jamie’s Day.
George was his usual upbeat self – "The only reason we saw rugby that was enjoyable is because they forced into playing like that!" – while Conor O'Shea and Brent Pope debated the possibility of England beating France by the required 26 points.
Tom: “Can you see them doing it?”
Conor: “No . . . but anything is possible. I mean, you can’t say it won’t happen.”
Brent: “It won’t.”
Conor: “Well . . .”
Brent (chuckling): “It. Is. Not. Going. To. Happen.”
Reassuring.
George: “Let me tell you how France could lose by that score . . .” (Cue Battle of Waterloo reference).
Not reassuring.
And, back on the BBC, Jonathan Davies didn’t help by telling us that “everyone keeps saying France have been unpredictable – actually, they’ve been predictable because they’ve been rubbish.”
So, by now you began to fret.
Joe Schmidt, though, seemed quite chilled about it all, telling Claire McNamara that he was off to have his dinner, his calm mystifying Tom and when England scored a try after two minutes you could only guess that the broccoli came back up.
A bit good
The first half was lively. The second? Well, usually some of us would have enjoyed the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy final a bit more than your average rugby half, but, okay, yes, it was a bit good. In a marginally insane way. It’s not many sporting contests that leave you gnawing your elbows.
On at least, oh, 15 occasions Hugh and Ralph sensed we were grand, only for England to stampede up the pitch again and score, all the time the clock in the top-left corner appearing to freeze. At one point, with the assistance of a stopwatch, we noted it took 39 minutes for it to go from 79:02 to 79:06. Excruciating. And then Yoann Huget. May he be stuck in a lift with Charles Aznavour's She playing on a loop.
But the day was ours.
We expected to see four sets of ankles in the air when we returned to Montrose, but the lads were, remarkably, upright. “The Battle of Waterloo didn’t last as long as that, and they weren’t as many casualties,” said Tom – which wasn’t strictly true, but he was forgiven given the day.
A musical farewell for Tom and George: “Now is the hour when we must say goodbye . . . when you return, you’ll find me waiting here,” which suggests their retirements might be Sinatra-esque.
And on to Sunday. “The weekend of weekends,” said Ryle Nugent after our women Six Nationed too. Cripes, we’re good. Oh Lord, it’s hard to be rugby-humble.
