Bertie and FF try to convert to rugby

Not since Charlie Haughey won the Tour de France on the back of Stephen Roche's bike has a sporting victory been so cheerfully exploited by politicians as Saturday's win in Twickenham.

Rugby is not the favourite game of any Fianna Fáil Ardfheis. But despite the ball's unfamiliar shape, the party ran with it for all it was worth.

It was a backs-and-forwards move, begun from an unpromising situation. Thanks to a bad bounce in the scheduling, the Minister for Sport found himself delivering his conference speech even as the epic game played out.

Showing brilliant footwork, however, he broke upfield with a series of post-match interviews. The silky Tom Kitt arrived at his shoulder to take the move on, prefacing his speech with the claim that he'd backed Ireland at 8/1. And suddenly, the momentum was unstoppable.

Within sight of the line, Fianna Fáil spread it wide. A local election candidate won cheers by suggesting Ireland had defeated "the Brits" at Twickenham.

This was a slight overstatement, but Martin Cullen - the party's plucky little scrum-half and Saturday's third-last speaker - straightened the line by asking: "Isn't it great that we beat the English?"

Then, in a missed move involving Brian Cowen (as an international statesman, he's not allowed slag the neighbours), Cullen passed to the flying Bertie Ahern, who touched down in the corner. The Fields of Athenry would be sung all over the world tonight, the Taoiseach declared.

It was a big contrast with the Killarney conference in October, during which the Irish soccer team lost in Switzerland. Here there was a sense that Fianna Fáil and Ireland had the wind behind them again and, armed with populist causes, the party was bullish about elections ahead. Cullen's guidelines for rural housing drew the biggest cheers for a comment not involving the word "England". And even then, he made it sound like his critics were playing in white. "We gave rural Ireland back to the people of Ireland," he shouted.

The Minister for Transport was a hero too. Busy as ever, Séamus the Tank Engine criss-crossed the country in his speech, spreading happiness and by-passes, and stopping only to admire the M1. He also had a surprise in the guard's van. As he chugged up to the Red Cow Roundabout, he announced a €600 million upgrade. Then, with a "Toot Toot!", he was off again.

In keeping with ardfheis tradition, the opposition got a sound kicking, mostly from John O'Donoghue in a speech that made the Nuremburg rallies look like a half-time talk in a camogie match. No surprises either in the post-conference huddle. England might lose at Twickenham, but there was never any chance of Donie Cassidy losing the race to get nearest the Taoiseach. As the credits rolled, he was there yet again on Bertie's shoulder, like Long John Silver's parrot. Around them, the party looked a confident lot. Singing The Fields of Athenry, and building new, one-off houses in them too.