Ireland's thoroughbreds match Weld's wizardry

TV VIEW: It was over once Elton came on. Even Ireland couldn't throw it away against a team with a sub called Elton. Just to make everyone get used to the winning feeling even quicker, Elton rejoices under the surname of Flatley.

How could Ireland lose?

But the point is that "the girls" - as us Irish rugby sceptics like to call them - have screwed it up so many times in the last few minutes that the sight of Elton bullocking onto the field in place of Stephen Larkham was like a hot towel of relief to a worried brow.

You never know, but Saturday's bruiser might just even be a turning point. Everything had been put in place for the usual let-down. Nothing was left to chance.

"There is cautious optimism today that Ireland can end this 11-match losing streak against Australia," said Steve Ryder on the BBC's Grandstand. "Loyal Irish fans are arriving . . . and with some optimism!"

This is the kind of stuff that in the past almost invariably heralded a collapse of communist proportions. A feature segment on new captain Brian O'Driscoll contained the line: "They are only men - they are only beatable."

Those of us who remember with nostalgia the 5 to 2 odds the bookies laid Argentina in that famous World Cup match nodded sagely and considered betting the spread on the winning margin. These were circumstances in which the girls knew how to lose, and with some style too.

The optimism persisted over on RTÉ.

"Have we a puff's chance?" asked Tom McGurk, wearing a jacket that only the very brave or the very blind try to get away with.

"I've come to see my favourite team and we are in with a shot," opined George Hook.

"I've come to see my least favourite team and Ireland have a real chance," said Brent Pope.

This was enough to have the finger-pointing above the telephone while digging out that sick and frail betting account number. But then Hook really hit stride.

- "The number nine is the umbilical cord between the donkeys in the forwards and the thoroughbreds in the backs. And (George) Gregan is the tops!"

- "Victor Costello is 18 stone and six foot, five. He's not a rugby player. He should be licensed by the department of motor vehicles!"

Hook looks the archetypal clubby-rugby type but his sheer enthusiasm, and willingness to form and articulate an opinion, make him invaluable to RTÉ. He even made the bookie option seem almost unpatriotic. That is until the time came for the musical part of the evening.

Has there ever been a more antiseptic piece of politically correct garbage passed off as a song than Ireland's Call. It's a dirge to compare to Fields Of Athenry, and it's no coincidence that both are loved at Lansdowne Road.

The camera panned around the crowd as row upon row of half-cut fans hugged each other, all the time roaring like newly castrated bullocks let loose into a field.

"That's wonderful, that's good. If anything will lift the Irish team, that will!" crowed commentator Jim Sherwin, bringing his tungsten-tough analysis to play.

So, we sat back and waited for the inevitable that never happened. "The Aussies are getting it up the Khyber," crowed McGurk at half-time, almost Wildean in his eloquence.

After that it was edge-of-the-seat stuff until Elton appeared and the crowd and the players went ape.

O'Driscoll led a lap of honour which, considering what happened after the last such lap, doesn't bode well. Class is consistent. Just as well then that at half-time, the Melbourne Cup was paraded at Lansdowne Road by Mark Weld, son of the trainer Dermot Weld.

The early hours of Tuesday on Sky Sports 1 had seen Weld win one of the world's great sporting events for the second time with Media Puzzle. No other visitor has come close.

The Australian press, no strangers to the snigger, have come to calling Weld a wizard. Throw in Saturday's match, and it's understandable if the Aussies look a little leery at the Irish from now on.

But the Poms, now that's a different story. Friday was incredible for the brief shaft of hope that shone on the England cricket team.

"How's that for a different story?" urged Mark Nicholas after the second day of the first Test of the Ashes turned England's way.

Plenty of shaping and an interview with the admirable Alec Stewart - who acknowledged that his team had been rightly roasted by the media the day before - followed. But we know now it was a false dawn.

Just a blip in the face of real class which the Irish rugby team would do well to remember is consistent.