As someone who spent most of his secondary education in Christian Brothers College in Cork strenuously avoiding all contact with compulsory games (read Rugby) I have become a very late and rather luke warm fan of the game.
This is partly because in the Languedoc the only thing people know about Ireland is about the rugby team.
(Yesterday the local chemist gave me antibiotics, without perscription, solely because Ireland were going to be playing for Son Premier Grand Chelem en 61 ans and he was horrified that anyone would have been too ill to enjoy it.)

I am a luke warm fan because the prospect of playing the game still horrifies me and I still blanch when I watch the risks these people subject their bodies to, in fact I still find it quite difficult to watch so I was delighted to find myself in France yesterday where the only version of the match I could access was via the internet and on radio.
I decided that i could just listen to it as background noise but I was entirely mistaken. From the begining when Wales started to lead it was totally engrossing and I ended up rivited.
Any author or playwright might envy this teams ability to keep the ending a total surprise until the last 20 seconds.
Any author of playwright might envy the teams ability to offer as much joy as they did with the stunning double try just after the interval-sorry half time.

So my prediction which I made on my birthday has been proved true and just as the Triple Crown was carried up the Lee on the moment of my birth so will the Grand Chelem be carried into Dublin today.

Well done all.