TV VIEW:SITTING ALONGSIDE Paul Wallace and Tyrone Howe on the Sky Sports panel, Sasanach Will Greenwood felt a bit of an interloper on this All-Ireland final day, but he tried to get into the spirit of things by donning a green tie so luminous it was quite possibly visible from Mars.
Tyrone tried to avert his eyes, he was already feeling queasy enough, admitting that when he woke up that morning he had knots in his tummy. He was half hopeful, though, promising “ferocity on an epic level” from Ulster, maybe even sufficiently ferocious to end those “13 years of hurt”.
By half-time he had no complaints about Ulster’s display, apart from “too many basic mistakes, too many slipped tackles, too many knock-ons, too many over-kicks, or kicks out of play, or kicking too far, too many . . .” Slumped so low in his chair, he was almost falling out of view.
His mood wasn’t lightened by Dean Ryan’s analysis of the first half, assisted by those 36 tellies set up for him in the bowels of Twickenham.
“On the frontline”, they call this tactics-dissecting segment, an appropriate enough name too given the militaristic visuals, all those arrows making it look a little like the opening sequence of Dad’s Army.
The gist of Ryan’s findings was Leinster’s rapid reaction force and full frontal assault had banjaxed Ulster’s hopes of a bit of trench warfare, their counter battery fire blunted by Leinster’s armoured spearhead and pincer movements.
Tyrone, though, really could have summed up Leinster’s first-half policy in two words: scorched earth. “Give them a sniff and they’ll fill their nostrils”, as Miles Harrison had said of their trench-raiding.
It didn’t get a whole lot better after the break, apart from the moment Dan Tuohy’s try made Tyrone sit up, briefly, in his chair again. Other than that, though, Blitzkrieg.
“Leinster. Have. Torn. Ulster. To. Pieces,” Stuart Barnes said, sympathetically, when Heinke van der Merwe made it 35-14, Seán Cronin’s late party piece drawing him to conclude that Ulster had been “kicked from one side of Twickenham to the other”.
You could only hope the Sky reporter by the name of Martin something would be more sensitive when he cornered Ulster coach Brian McLaughlin for a chat.
Just the three questions: (1) “Torn to pieces Brian, would that be a fair summation?” (2) “If you had your time again would you do anything differently?” (3) “On reflection, was it a day when you should have gone for experience rather than youth at 10?”
You were half expecting the fourth to be: “Would you like to apologise to the people of Ulster now, live on air, before you resign with your head held low?”
Back outside, Leinster were partying hard, the Twickenham DJ having dusted down his old Status Quo 45 to serenade them.
“This is the greatest European team we have ever seen . . . the best passing team, perhaps, on the entire planet,” said Stuart, and even watching Munster fans wouldn’t have disagreed. Kidding.
So then, Ireland rules Europe once again. And you don’t see that headline too often. As Will suggested, “the monopolies and mergers commission should investigate what is going on here”.
