Hook line sinks Wallace as Les Girls rain supreme

TV VIEW/Brian O'Connor: What price Ireland for the wooden spoon in the Six Nations championship? Seriously, this can't last.

"Les Girls" are supposed to fill the role of gallant losers whose only hope of trotting through the last 10 minutes of any match is the thought of pints later on.

But now they're flunking their lines. God help us all, they're even on a streak. Can you imagine it? A streak: the only streak Irish rugby usually indulges in is with a wet towel in tow.

They'll pay for it in the spring. No kidding. They're doooomed!

"Ireland looking for a sixth successive test win, a record," crowed Tom McGurk before Saturday's match with Argentina, and it was all a lot of us could do to stifle a yawn. Which was as fine a compliment as the girls will ever get, when you think about it.

After all, in the good old days this was a classic set up. Ireland were 2 to 7 favourites, coming off a win against a Fijian team that looked as comfortable in Dublin as a stroppy Johnny Adair, and they were trying not to look smug into the bargain. Irish rugby could never do smug and win, but times have certainly changed.

Brian O'Driscoll and the rest of the team waded on to Lansdowne Road and were met by an opposition not so much warming up as treading water. Several long-haired, suspiciously glamorous South Americans peeped over the water line and wept with nostalgia for the bone-dry pampas.

"They won't like this," ventured guest panellist David Wallace who was immediately torpedoed by HMS Hook next to him.

"Contrary to David's geography, there is a lot of rain down there in the south Atlantic," trumpeted George with all ensigns fluttering. "I've never played there, but I suspect that's what it's like."

The realisation that such definitive statements are clearly riper than a slurried meadow usually comes too late for George to have to defend them properly, but who cares when they're carried off with such pomp.

The same could even be said for the Argentine coach who clearly had been spending the week with his arse up against a radiator in the team hotel.

"You are a tough people because you have to live here in this weather," he said through a slit in his thermal anorak. "It is very tough to live here."

After that, Hook proceeded to spend minutes outlining the Mike Ford Defence System used by the Irish team and made it sound like Ronnie Reagan's Star Wars plans could have been made in the Blue Peter studio with some cellotape and a bog roll.

In the event, the tackling in the paddy field appeared a bit more agricultural than strategic.

"You said they should stop it George," said McGurk at half-time.

"I didn't say stop it," said an indignant Hook. "But it's getting close."

"A person can drown in two inches of water . . . who's going to take that chance," chimed Brent Pope.

"It has to go ahead," twittered Wallace.

"NO IT DOESN'T," thundered George, as if the young pup had made a grab for the periscope.

McGurk tried to inspire some tension for the second half but Hook was steadfastly refusing to play. The Argies hadn't impressed him, especially the sweaty-handed full back.

"A bluff full back in Limerick playing junior rugby would have caught that ball - in Bruff!" he sniffed mysteriously.

And that was that, Ireland ploughed through the swamp to win, Hook harrumphed his way through the post-match analysis and Wallace kept his mouth shut. It wasn't his fault, he'd just taken too many broadsides.

You see, there is no substitute for experience. Before the Wales-New Zealand game, the Beeb spent minutes in a new bar at the Millennium Stadium built for former players to gather and lie about how great they were. Except some of them don't need to lie.

Even now, JPR Williams lives and breathes the sort of charisma which today's focused young professionals can only dream of.

Standing around a pint-strewn table with Gerald Davies, JJ Williams and Gareth Edwards, JPR gave a lucid sound-bite that made one despair at the usual "focused and organised" quote one usually hears from players now. Or maybe that's nostalgia.

Colin Charvis, the new Welsh captain, was featured later and was asked why he'd got the gig. "Probably to keep me under control . . . means I can't sleep at the back of the team meetings any more."

The Beeb are good at such features. What they are not good at is roughing it in bars. A Beeb woman was installed in packed Cardiff pub for some "colour".

"Your heart is in your mouth isn't it?" she asked a woman.

"Sorry? I can't hear you." Lucky thing.