SIDELINE CUT:It is time to acknowledge that Ireland versus England, Six Nations 2007, was one of the weirdest evenings in the history of Irish sport

ENGLAND AGAIN! Much has changed since that chill and hazy February evening two years ago when 15 men in pristine white shirts emerged from the tunnel of the Hogan Stand in Croke Park, beaten before they ever took the field. In retrospect, the men wearing the red rose of England that night hadn’t a chance. As John Pullin immortally remarked of his own English team that showed up in Dublin during the tense months of 1972: “We mightn’t always win, but at least we turn up.”

Two years ago, an English rugby team turned up for what was, as they say, a night to remember. But remembered for what? It is time to acknowledge that Ireland versus England, Six Nations 2007, was one of the weirdest evenings in the history of Irish sport.

How could the English have won on an evening aquiver with the weight of a dark episode in Irish history being righted – through a rugby match? Gamely, the boys from the Home Counties appeared on the field. Englishmen, back on Croke Park, so many decades after . . . lest we forget . . . uncertain of how they would be received. The sight of them standing there brought to mind Captain George’s description in Blackadder Goes Forth of his pals as they signed up in August 1914: “Crashingly superb bunch of blokes. Fine, clean-limbed; even our acne had a strange nobility about it.”

They walked out onto the field fully accepting their meek roles in what, with the distance of a full two years, seems an even more bizarre pageant of mixed-up history, sentimentalism, boozy national pride, slick marketing, incessant anthem singing and the vaguely uncomfortable sense that a rugby match had become a mass rally for Irish jingoism. Gravely, the English boys stood along shoulder to shoulder as God Save the Queen sounded over out. They understood the significance of the moment. They understood their presence in Croke Park was a big deal, that the idea of St George’s flag fluttering over the red-bricked terraces of Dublin city evoked keen emotions in the Irish.

And they understood that in the dim and distant past, when Europe was recovering from one world war and assembling the various attitudes and philosophies that would set it on an irrevocable path towards a second, that Englishmen in uniform had once done something terrible in this ground. They knew because they were given a history lecture on Bloody Sunday in the days before the game. Nobody can be certain how that little talk ended, but it might have been along the lines of: “All in all chaps, it might be best if you finished second best in the match.”

So a few lonely-sounding English voices loyally sang their tribute to queen and country and the glories of lost empire in this old sporting theatre, the last bastion of Irish nationalism.

And then the miracle: you could hear a penny drop. That is what we said afterwards, pouring out of the ground and into the super-pubs. The Irish stood up and stood silent and allowed the guests of the nation to sing it out. And we were proud of ourselves.

A bit teary, in fact. We are nothing if not a sentimental lot and never pass up a chance to celebrate ourselves. Look at us now, we marvelled: a mature, sophisticated, modern country. And rich! When it came to our turn for the anthems – Amhrán na bhFiann for Southerners, Phil Coulter’s best for Our Friends in the North – we gave it socks. Shook the foundations of “Croker”.

In fact, we proclaimed, the old girl never had such a good time in all her years. The GAA opened up their hall but it took the rugby crowd to show them how to hold a real dance.

On to the game, and there was only one team in it. Ireland thundered into England and it soon became clear Albion’s challenge was pale. As the match turned into a rout, the atmosphere was raucous and jubilant and it thirsted for more scores, it thirsted for the sight and sensation of an England team crushed in this old theatre of new dreams.

The English team played their part, the English newspapers said all the rights things – were glowing in their praise of us, in fact – and, as their aeroplanes wheeled high over Dublin Bay to deliver them back to Blighty, they must have scratched their heads and wondered what the hell it was all about. If ever the English were destined not to understand the Irish, it was that weekend.

But the whole occasion was all just plain wrong. It was manufactured emotion. The big problem with everything that happened that night was that it overlooked the huge, glaring fact that what happened on Bloody Sunday belongs to GAA culture. It is part of their history. True, there were GAA men in the crowd delighted their stadium could play host to this international sports fixture. But equally, there was a significant minority of GAA people who rued – and continue to – the day when Croke Park was opened up.

And there was still another element who could never quite understand how the memory of what was a real and terrible atrocity could be married to what was a finely tuned international sports event, as if it were somehow part of the programme of events along with the three-course dinners, the advertising and the television hoopla.

It is easy to understand why the night mattered so much to the Irish rugby players. The hype and moral expectation in the days before the game was all but unbearable: whatever about the public forgiving them had they lost, it is unlikely that they would have forgiven themselves. The players were as this group have been throughout: committed and blazing with pride, proud to play for Ireland.

The fault was with the rest of us. It was with everyone who contributed to the myth that Ireland versus England 2007 marked some sort of natural understanding between two nations with a close and bloody past. It was never that. Ireland got carried away with the conjured portents that the evening held and the English sportingly played along. Then, they had no choice to do otherwise.

Two years on and England come back, the underdogs again and thorns in those roses they wear on their breasts. Martin Johnson could recite Henry V’s St Crispin’s Day’s speech for all anyone cares this evening: there is not so much talk about Croke Park as the hallowed ground this time around.

That must be a relief for the English lads. At least they won’t have to listen solemnly to Irish history lessons. At least they won’t have to run into a stadium full of 70,000 Paddies in High Pomposity mode. And at least they won’t have to feel guilty about being English.

“As their aeroplanes wheeled over Dublin Bay to deliver them back to Blighty, the English must have scratched their heads and wondered what the hell it was all about. If ever the English were destined not to understand the Irish, it was that weekend