With Ireland winning a Grand Slam every single time the channel has brought us the Six Nations (admittedly, once), expectations were toweringly lofty in the Virgin Media studio when they welcomed us to the beginning of the 2019 campaign last evening.
They were, of course, still called TV3 for their all-conquering debut last year and as we know it’s unlucky to rename ships, so we’ll wait to see if that fate-tempting leaves the SS Schmidt floundering on the rocks. And if it does, on Virgin Media’s heads be it.
But their opening montage – and no campaign launch is complete without a stirring one – kind of reassured us that all might be well, a lady called Ruelle singing “are we the hunters or are we the prey?” over images of a bunch of lads loitering in the woods before whipping out bows and arrows and taking aim at tree trunks.
Arrows
The arrows that represented England, Scotland, Wales, France and Italy bounced off the trees in quite a humiliating fashion, barely making a dent, while the green ones went through them like cruise missiles.
At a guess this meant that while Ireland are everyone’s targets this year they are thoroughly impenetrable, and when they themselves take aim the opposing tree trunks will be reduced to kindling. And you’d settle for that.
Best of all, the montage included Johnny ‘It’s spinning, IT’S SPINNING!’ Sexton’s drop goal in Paris, although if you haven’t seen the version of it where My Heart Will Go On is the soundtrack, you really haven’t lived.
Joe Molloy showed his guests – Matt Williams, Shane Jennings and Ronan O’Gara – Ireland’s XV for the England game and while all three tried their level best to point out weaknesses, they really couldn’t identify any.
Shane just kind of shrugged in a ‘what can you say?’ kind of way. This lack of worry left them worried, so they dug a little deeper and wondered if Robbie Henshaw at fullback might be a gamble, as do most of us entirely unfamiliar with him playing in that position, seeing it as akin to, say, playing Robbie Brady in goal.
Matt, who noted that England had selected “a bunch of big boppers”, reckoned they would bombard the fella with high balls, but as a former Westmeath minor Gaelic footballer (Robbie, not Matt), he assumed this would be meat and drink to Henshaw, followed by a cigar.
It was time then to hear Eddie Jones’s thoughts on the game, although Shane advised us to just ignore the “noise”.
“All we can do is prepare well,” said Eddie, “we can’t think that this or that might happen, we can’t think that Donald Trump is going to build a wall between countries, we can’t think about those sort of things.”
Shane grinned, bigly.
On to France v Wales, the inclusion in the French side of Romain Ntamack, son of Emile, making the entire viewership feel antiquated, although not half as antediluvian as those who spotted Ian Botham’s grandson emerging at Cardiff Blues.
What followed was a game that fits neatly in to the bonkers category, our thoughts going out to Schmidt’s video analysis team when they try to make sense of it.
Missed their flight
At half-time Ronan suggested that – a bit like the Welsh fans who had tickets for the game in Paris but were struck by weather-related travelling nightmares – the Welsh team hadn’t shown up, but come the second half it was the French who’d missed their flight.
Earlier in the day, despite the match starting at 5.0 on a Friday afternoon, the powers-that-be opting for the “if you can’t see it, that’ll be because you’re stuck in rush hour traffic” hashtag, 4,637 answered Ireland’s call and made it to Donnybrook for the women’s Six Nations opener against England.
A hard watch it was too, 51-7 the crushing margin of the defeat in the end, the gulf between the sides more than a little grim.
That strategic plan better be a good one.
For a brief moment RTÉ’s Des Curran appeared to suggest the visitors were up to no good. “England have cocaine on the bench,” he said. Amy Cokayne really should change her name by deed poll.
