SIDELINE CUT:Our rugby team has become the focal point for the Irish all over the world and in every conceivable time zone, writes KEITH DUGGAN

CATCH YOUR breath now. Have your coffee or your xanax or your morning yoga session. Meditate. Say a prayer. Take stock. Your heart rate is falling faster than shares in a small, snobbish European bank and even though the birds have just begun to whistle outside, you really want to crack open something strong.

Your mind is racing and you notice that the furniture in the living-room is in disarray – cushions everywhere, a lamp tossed, a tricolour hanging from the curtain rail. In your mind and on your sofa, you have just played 80 minutes of elite rugby and by now one of two things have happened. Like the Big O used to sing, It’s Over. Or, in the immortal refrain of the divine Karen Carpenter, We’ve Only Just Begun.

Time zones have always been a head wreck when it comes to sport and this Rugby World Cup, which comes bundled in 80-minute nerve-wracking packages that must be opened before dawn, has turned into something absurd.

Most of you are so frazzled by now that you couldn’t care less what month it is in New Zealand, let alone what time it might be there. All you know you is that this middle-of-the-night rugby lark is not good for you. And there is only one question. Did they win?

Oh, it has been a weird night in this troubled little land. For most people, the decision was not whether to watch Ireland v Wales at 6am on Saturday but how to watch it.

Should they mainline on the soccer international between Ireland versus Andorra on Friday night and rely on the adrenaline of that along with the company of like-minded patriots to carry them through to the appointed hour when Ireland versus Wales kicked off?

That seemed like the best option for many. Late-night parties, breakfast parties, family parties, office parties: if the MRBI conducted a poll on the matter, they would find that Friday night, Saturday morning contained more pub “lock-ins” since the high point of the Jack Charlton era.

The alternative to staying up and watching the match in a kind of altered state was to get up criminally early. Many people planned on “rising” at 5am.

Still others planned to cheer “the lads” on from under the duvet. They say a lot of Irish folks have televisions in their bedrooms nowadays. They say a fondness for watching multi-channel from the comfort of one’s orthopaedic mattress may well be the permanent legacy of the Celtic Tiger. This has its advantages but there is still something a bit off about watching rugby at this hour.

Let’s be honest: to invite Messrs Hook, McGurk and Pope into your shaded boudoir at 6am is a perversity that even the Marquis de Sade would have blanched at.

Everyone wants to answer Ireland’s Call but there are limits. One thing was clear: there haven’t been this many people on the move in the middle of the night in Ireland since the Roaring Noughties, when everyone was busy catching pre-dawn flights to New York or standing in an all-night queue to lay a hundred grand deposit on a bijou cottage with Famine-era charm just an hour’s commute from the capital.

Last night, the old country was hoppin’ again. It’s alive inside and all that.

Did they win? If so, does the country have to go through this again? Because the previous 24 hours were nerve-wracking. We went to the oddest sources looking for any insider knowledge on the likely outcome of the game. The most comforting tip came not from the various oval ball experts but from one Orlando Bloom, who declared his belief that Ireland “deserved” to win the World Cup.

It doesn’t matter if you never heard of Orlando Bloom: he is an actor who was once tipped to be the “new” Errol Flynn. It turns out that like the old Swashbuckler, Orlando has some green heritage in him.

Mind you, Orlando is also an absolutely minted English ham married to an Australian model and happily acting it up in the latest Tolkien global blockbuster being filmed in New Zealand so what he was actually saying was that no matter who wins the World Cup, he still comes out on top in the game of life. Which is always the way with these suave Hollywood types.

Still, last night, as Ireland went ahead and beat Andorra to set up a nail-biting finale at the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday night, there seemed to be something profound in what old Orlando was saying. Ireland should win the rugby World Cup!

“If one nation could use a bit of love it’s Ireland,” Orlando said.

Slightly condescending, but undeniably true. And glowing with derring-do.

Why not? That was the thought that sustained the citizens of this nation through those long witching hours when many a family feud was settled over gallons of tea and whiskey and many another was started. People care about this Irish rugby team because they showed heart and substance throughout a decade when so much else was illusory.

It helps that they are, in the words of Captain George in Blackadder, a crashingly superb bunch of blokes. And they are still here. This World Cup is bittersweet because it represents for the likes of O’Connell, O’Driscoll and O’Gara a best and last chance to take Irish sport into uncharted territory. The reason so many care about this team in this World Cup is that they know they are seeing them play in this tournament for the last time.

And it is all the more poignant because the cities in New Zealand are jam-packed with the Irish diaspora, those who had to flee these shores (always shores, as if people still emigrate by curragh) in search of work and a better life. Everyone says it breaks their heart to see them out there, with their faces painted in tricolours and huge smiles: if you didn’t know differently you would think they were having the time of their lives.

So the Irish rugby team has become the focal point for the Irish all over the world and in every conceivable time zone.

So what time is it now, where you are? Here, it’s early. If Ireland won, then the chances are the country is a little bit unhinged right now. Everyone, even Gay Mitchell, is smiling. In Dublin Castle, where the big knobs of commerce and industry have gone ’round the table to yank the iron out of the fire, it has probably fallen apart. Planned forums and think-tanks have been abandoned and right now Bill Clinton is leading several French economists in a rousing chorus of The Wild Rover.

If Ireland won, then they may as well suspend the presidential election for a few weeks. Or let all seven of ’em share it. Nobody is going to care.

If Ireland won, the game of games against England or France awaits. The auld enemy or the new enemy – it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that Ireland are still in New Zealand, that faraway country that schedules rugby games for a daft time of the morning.

So did Ireland win? I only ask because the alarm clock failed and the match ended an hour ago and I’m afraid to look.