Look, it had to end in tears. Would we have had it any other way? In this country, it seems we have developed a curious affliction, a collective mental block, when it comes to throwing and catching oval objects. Moments after Scotland began their lap of honour in Murrayfield, George Hook began to put things in perspective.
The only certainty about Irish rugby is that there is a "problem". The precise nature of the problem was left to the viewer to identify, but it is safe to say that the effect usually leads to the boys in green looking haggard and beaten at the end of their contest.
The "problem", as George perceived it, lies with the Irish threequarter line, which, it appears, is not exactly zipping with imagination. Bell, Henderson and Maggs, for example, are all big, strong men to whom the art of passing is an alien and irrelevant concept. This was no good, reckoned George.
"Irish rugby," he declared, "is littered with big, strong men who cannot pass the ball." (Have you checked out the Ulster football scene, pal?)
His companions, Brent Pope and Tom McGurk, chortled gamely at the damning synopsis, but it was gallows humour and all three signed off with the look of men who knew that -like their sporting subjects - they had felt some fleeting happiness over the season but ultimately just weren't gelling.
As viewers, we tend to feed off our analysts and anchormen for crumbs of optimism and belief. It is likely that folk have gambled whole college funds on the strength of a particularly convincing smile from Brent or a stern sermon from George on the merits of our front three.
These consoling grains were just not there for the gleaning on Saturday. Everything was wrong, even the dress code. Brent's suit made him look too much like a debt collector, bringing to mind the unfathomable emotional and financial debt Irish rugby incurs upon the average fan. The best thing to say about Tom McGurk's tie is that it was pink. It was hard to be definite about why the unapologetic pinkness of Tom's tie left one with an uneasy feeling, but it did.
To bring some balance - and even more sartorial infamy to the studio - RTE imported Doddie Weir, the impossibly gangly and generally indecipherable Scottish lock, who, inevitably, turned up in one of those hideous tartan suits. Sitting a large haggis among the group would have had an equally beneficial effect.
So it was then, that this unlikely barber shop quartet set about previewing what always looked likely to be another of those forgettable Irish afternoons. Nerves were fraught. Warren Gatland came on and suggested that a win for Scotland would probably lead to an economic collapse here. George Hook said that Warren's speech was subversive in the extreme and might "well rank alongside the `I don't know whose game plan that was' talk by Brian Ashton."
Brent ridiculed such a notion and Doddie shifted uneasily in his seat.
In retrospect, it is easy to trace the tension back to the, well, innovative, pre-match report featuring both Brent and George. The idea was that the lads would wander through a house under construction and talk about Irish rugby while drawing heavily on building analogies. So there was much chat about "rising damp in the lineouts" and foundations and the like.
Maybe it was the producer's way of paying homage to a blissful childhood spent watching Blue Peter. Maybe they were offered the props for free. Maybe it was a tax initiative thing.
Whatever the reason, it was a spectacularly bad call. They might have gotten away with it had they not employed a couple of hard hats for George and Brent to wear. Both men - George in particular - are serious rugby people. They say things like "second phase ball" in hushed tones. It was fundamentally wrong to film them walking around in stupid, blue, hard hats. Not even Doddie was forced to succumb to that sort of tomfoolery. We'd best get this sorted before the World Cup.
The only thing less preferable to losing would be to win the way the English do. Tried to watch them numb France on those (frequent) moments when following Ireland became too galling a proposition. Thing was, the only player ever in the picture was Jonny (where'd the H go?) Wilkinson. Jonny seemed invariably to be kicking. We learned that Jonny was 19. We learned that he had a "lovely, lazy rhythm to his kick". We were invited by Sky's commentator, Mike Harrison, to imagine Jonny when in his prime at 29.
Billy Beaumont purred contentedly at this vision of a protracted golden era for English kicking. But the idea of Jonny and his lazy rhythm filling our screens for the next decade was profoundly depressing in the vague way that McGurk's tie was unsettling. It's as well our Five Nations season is done. It's a hellish, finite sort of torture. The Italians will know all about it next year.
Also depressed this week was Alan Hansen. The angular Scot spent a few days in the company of the Premiership's football millionaires to talk to them about the pressures of the modern game. Soccer, Hansen contended, has changed beyond recognition in the eight years since he last kicked a ball. Money has been the catalyst.
"When I started off at (Partick) Thistle, I got £12 a week," he said ruefully before heading off to play golf with Michael Owen, soccer with David Beckham and to talk with the breathtakingly tedious Alan Shearer.
That "soccer players have worries, too," seemed to be the central premise. That money can't buy even a flicker of personality was the ultimate message. The football millionaires are given millions to kick football - often badly. They don't want to talk and it's not surprising to see why. They have nothing to say. Sport can do that to a soul.
