All a bit surreal for super Shaggy

England v Ireland: Gerry Thornley finds the two-try hero unwilling to hog the limelight as he prefers to give his pack the credit for keeping Ireland in the game.

It's the stuff boyhood dreams are made of. You've been one of the tournament's outstanding players, you've already scored Ireland's first try of the match and then you score the winning try to clinch a Triple Crown in the penultimate minute of the last match of the campaign against England at Twickenham. And then you wake up.

About the worst thing that happened to Shane Horgan on the most memorable day of his career to date was perhaps, after he'd fulfilled the bodily needs of the drug-testing, he had to face those of us in the media determined to ascertain the thoughts of the hero of the hour.

He's been coming more out of his shell this last while, in part on the Lions tour and then notably in Paris when facing the cameras afterwards. But essentially it's not his game. He prefers to have the profile of a limbo dancer.

Despite the customary stubble, in his tailored, pin-striped Ireland suit, "Shaggy" didn't look too shaggy, but being the star of the hour is not something he would particularly seek.

"It's a bit surreal, actually. I don't know if you even dream about it, especially in a game like that one today. I saw the passion our forwards showed, especially when we were down to 14 there for a while, it was just exceptional and I think guys like John Hayes, Jerry Flannery and Marcus Horan, the frontrowers, and also Paul O'Connell and Denis Leamy, in fact all our pack, they really carried us through this whole season.

"As a backline we maybe didn't fire as well we could have throughout the championship and those guys got us out of some fairly dark places and that's where the credit lies for this Triple Crown."

He repeated his TV line about his first try that after Ben Cohen slipped, "I managed to nip around the corner and get a bit of a foot on it and then put it down, I suppose," he concluded laughing.

Moving swiftly on to his second score, he added: "It was a bit of intensive work by the forwards and then it was magnificent vision by Peter, he took it on a little run around the side of the ruck and then threw a ball over the top to me. And it was just trying to stay out of touch and get the ball down."

Asked if he was pretty confident he'd scored, Horgan giggled and said, "I was pretty confident when Ronan O'Gara jumped on me and starting roaring, that sort of made me a little more confident. I wasn't sure until I saw the video afterwards and it looked pretty conclusive, I think."

And the first one? "Yeah, maybe less conclusive," he quipped. "I'm not entirely sure. I'm not even entirely sure of the rule. The ball was bouncing up and hovering over the line, but I don't think it actually touched the line. I got a kick on it and went through for a try. I'm sure you informed journalists know the exact ruling." Yeah, right.

Eddie O'Sullivan also revealed that in the dressingroom Horgan emerged as a real team leader. "I don't know if I did anything exceptional. I think the mindset in Paris from everybody changed, there were a lot of guys who stood up that day in the second half. I suppose as a team we weren't sure if that was there but there was a real resilience and it came out in that second half in Paris and I think it's shown for the rest of the championship."

Asked where it ranks as a career high, he simply laughed: "Obviously from a personal point of view I don't think it gets much better than getting a try in the last minute at Twickenham to help us win a Triple Crown."

A bright, left field character, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Similarly, O'Connell wasn't inclined to take any kudos for the 49th minute lineout steal when England elected to kick a short-range penalty into the corner. "We haven't conceded a try off a lineout maul all year and it's something we had set out to do for ourselves. I would have been confident that if we hadn't won that lineout we could have held them."

Reflecting on that Parisian defeat, O'Connell was honest enough to reflect also on what might have been this season, the fourth since the turn of the millennium in which Ireland came within one win of a first Grand Slam since 1948.

"The first half in Paris can't be ignored. Some times we reel out the excuse that apart from a few mistakes we could have won the game, but you can't keep doing that. You get away with that for a few games, after that you have to move. I suppose now we'll look back and think 'God if we hadn't made those mistakes, we could be in a different position', but that's all part of it. We came back well in the second half and that could have been a catalyst for what happened today."

Two years ago, O'Connell said in the aftermath of the Triple Crown success Ireland should be aiming higher, and his aim hasn't changed. "You've got to look at the talent we have. Ireland have always had good packs but when you look at the backs we have now, like Darce, Drico, Geordie and other guys, we need to start making more of it.

"Two Triple Crowns is great, but we need to kick on, to start looking at Grand Slams, we need to start looking at winning away from home in the southern hemisphere, y'know, making steps up. Because I don't think backlines like we have at the moment come along that often."

Leamy's fitness for Munster's European Cup quarter-final against Perpignan on Saturday week in Lansdowne Road remains in doubt although the grave fears that the player had suffered a bad injury were at least dispelled after a post-match X-ray.

"The extent of the damage we won't know for another day or two but it looks like there's no fracture in his ankle," said Eddie O'Sullivan.