A bittersweet chariot came to carry England's supporters home last night, with their hopes of a Six Nations grand slam in the luggage bin.
Being home already, Irish rugby fans now have a diametrically different direction in mind. Having masterminded a record-equalling 10 wins in a row, coach Joe Schmidt’s immediate challenge is stop us all getting carried away.
Travel may in any case be unavoidable. Trips to Cardiff in a fortnight and than Edinburgh stand between Ireland and back-to-back Six Nations championships. In the meantime, a resurgent Welsh look daunting enough to prevent premature talk about a Green Slam.
After a wintry start to Sunday in Dublin, with hail, sleet, and snow, conditions were surprisingly clement by game-time. But try telling that to the English backs, who were pelted with an unrelenting downpour of high balls for the next hour and a half.
Ireland’s ball-retrievers revelled in the weather, chasing Conor Murray’s box-kicks like a pack of happy gundogs.
It was apt that the game's only try came from yet another Murray lob, which fell like soft rain on to the head of Robbie Henshaw, in the process baptising the baby-faced Athlone man as the superstar centre of the post-O'Driscoll era.
Heroics
For that and other heroics, Henshaw was man of the match. But this was yet another utterly clinical performance from a team in which the whole is greater than any combination of parts.
The Schmidt machine survived the precautionary substitutions of a flawless Johnny Sexton and a barnstorming Seán O'Brien to win by 10 points – at least nine more than bookmakers predicted.
And yet, a late loss of momentum allowed captain Paul O'Connell the luxury of being a bit annoyed afterwards that they had finished on the defensive. England actually crossed the Irish try-line with the last play, before a pass was ruled forward. Expect the team management to play this lapse up over the next fortnight. Maybe the Irish cricket team will do him a favour by pulling off another World Cup shock tomorrow morning. Then sports fans would have a choice of bandwagons and ease the pressure on the one Schmidt is driving.
