Hammers all deflated as we cancel those seats on the Setanta Express

TV VIEW:IT WASN'T quite the welcome you'd have expected from Matt Williams on Setanta at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning when we were still wiping the sleep from our eyes. He was actually rather stern with his viewers, in a slightly finger-wagging kind of way. But you knew he was doing it for their own good, preparing them for the worst in case it actually happened.

“A lot of you are carrying on like 15-year-old schoolgirls at the height of their first love – can you all take a breath and calm down,” he asked.

That was us told, the air sucked right out of our inflatable green, white and gold hammers.

He’d left the country for a couple days, he told us, and when he came back he discovered a nation that was convinced that World Cup glory was imminent. “Like it’s all over! But we’ve got three games to go!

"And thisis a tough one," he said to Neil Francis.

So, Neil took a deep breath – but there really was no calming him either, “Unfortunately, I’m on the bandwagon too,” he confessed, a bit sheepishly. “Yeah, you’ve got the pom-poms out,” Matt noted.

The thing is, though, Matt was sending us mixed messages. No sooner had he warned us that beating Wales wasn’t, in fact, predestined, he was prompting us to wave our hammers and pom-poms by telling us all about the “Setanta Express”.

“The guys here at Setanta have actually chartered a plane, it’s on standby for next Thursday – I’m serious about this,” he revealed.

“It’s a 280-seat Airbus and if Ireland win they’re going to be selling seats on it from 10am today.”

And with that those hammers magically re-inflated and Neil started packing his deep vein thrombosis compression socks and New Zealand dollars.

Over on RTÉ confidence, it has to be said, wasn’t quite that high, Tom McGurk telling us he’d “never seen a panel with more butterflies in their stomachs”.

They all, though, tipped Ireland to do the job, even if Frankie Sheahan suggested our former supremo Warren Gatland might be quite up for it.

What would he be saying to his Welsh players at that moment?

“He’ll have tears in his eyes,” he said, “and he’ll say: ‘Guys, I want you to smash ’em, smash ’em, smash ’em, smash ’em – and one more thing: smash ’em’.”

Declan Kidney? Frankie, sounding more Kidney than Kidney himself: “He’ll be saying, ‘Well, you know, the people have spent a lot of money to be here’, and so forth. Different approaches.”

Over to “Windy Wellie”, as Matt told us the spot is called, and there weren’t three minutes on the clock when Wales smashed over with a try.

Ryle Nugent and Donal Lenihan’s voices dropped several pitches, as did advance bookings for the Setanta Express.

All a bit tense, the only relief that rather splendid banner in the crowd: “If you love Irish girls raise your hand. If you don’t, raise your standards.”

Half-time, 3-10. “You shouldn’t be disheartened,” Matt reassured us, but Neil, having now put on his compression socks for the long haul that would be the second half, sported a face that said something like: “Yikes”.

The second half and Keith Earls’ try very nearly caused Ryle and Donal to fall out of the commentary box, their voices reaching a pitch that nigh on shattered the champagne flutes, on top of the telly, that, like the Setanta Express, were on standby. But that’s where the good times ended.

“Why, why, why Delilah indeed,” said Matt, as the tune blasted over the Wellington speakers. Delilah, was a woman knifed to death by her jealous ex-lover. Coincidentally, Neil, a bit like the ex-lover, threatened to go home and skip the England v France game because, frankly, he “just couldn’t take any more”.

“I feel like disgorging the contents of my breakfast,” he told us, Matt passing him a Setanta Express sick bag. “What do we know?” asked Neil, Matt holding his hands up to suggest “nada”.

“We live another day,” Kidney told his New Zealand interviewer, but Neil begged to differ. “We don’t live another day, there is no tomorrow, we’re going home.”

Back on RTÉ they reckoned there was no tomorrow either, George Hook concluding it had all gone pear-shaped on “the most important day in Irish history”. Brent Pope chuckled. Even as a committed rugby man he was obviously aware the most important day in Irish history comes tomorrow when the football lads meet Armenia.

It wasn’t to be, then. No rolling up for the Setanta Express. But a lovely journey, all the same. And look, it might take a while to arrive, but there is always tomorrow.