Kidney leaves us with that warm feeling, like a pot of Barry's tea

TV VIEW:IT WAS a perfectly uplifting morning, until the camera picked out that tricolour in the Dunedin crowd.

“Mammy – More Barry’s Tea Bags Pls (+Tayto),” read the message scribbled on it.

Now, that was enough to make you dissolve, hopelessly. It used to be teabags, crisps and Sally O’Brien and the way she might look at you that the Diaspora yearned for, now Sally’s yesterday’s woman. But other than that, nothing much has changed.

Well, except for the little slice of happiness that a team and a coach lambasted a few wet weeks ago are now giving us all, home and away, and getting the home crew up at unearthly hours of weekend mornings.

It was, to be honest, hard to imagine it possible that Shamrock Rovers’ support in London for their Europa League game against Spurs would be topped in the sporting week that was in it, but Dunedin was a bit beyond special. And a bit beyond sad, too.

But at least they’re getting something to celebrate.

Come full-time, Conor O’Shea was ecstatic too, although he felt fairly certain the coach would “keep a lid on things”.

“Declan Kidney will come on and I’m sure he’ll say he’s happy with the performance, but ‘we just wanted to get out of the pool’,” he said.

That was doubtful, surely. This, after all, was a man probably entitled to wave a couple of fingers, rather lustily, at the panelist back home who said before the World Cup that he’d only put Kidney “in charge of the rooming list”. Certainly not the team.

Kidney, then, would inevitably erupt, in a na-na na-na-na vengeful explosion of fury.

“What an outstanding performance,” said his New Zealand interviewer, “it gives you fantastic momentum going in to the quarter-final.”

“It’s just phase one, we just wanted to get out of the pool,” said the coach, his fingers entirely idle.

See? That makes him a better person than the rest of us. Much, much better.

Admit it, you’d have been flashing your bare bottom at the cameras, with ‘rooming’ and ‘list’ tattooed on each cheek.

Yesterday, though, was a brand new day. The RTÉ team was gushing in its praise. Kidney, said Tom McGurk, was the man who “seems to have got everything right”. (Well, “to date”.)

From “we are in deep, deep doo-doo!” less than two months ago, George ‘rooming list’ Hook was now not completely ruling out the possibility of the Kidney-led doo-doo XV making it all the way to the World Cup final. From “this team couldn’t unpick a safe with the key” three weeks ago, he was paying tribute to a “team awash with leaders”.

Cripes, you’d be dizzy from it all.

In fairness, though, those of us who know not a great deal about this rugby stuff should be grateful to that slice of the RTÉ panel that persuaded anyone who would listen (behave) that this coach and team would give us absolutely nothing to cheer about at the World Cup.

Having taken that advice, it’s all turning out to be a bit of a lovely surprise.

And d’you know, even if they lose 96-3 to Wales, what they did before will still go down as a ruddy marvellous distraction from all the gloom.

And no one is tingling more than George, having bid adieu to his “doo-doo” phase. “I don’t have to come on here and prove my patriotism by wearing a green flag and singing Amhrán na bhFiann,” he said, with nothing wrapped around him but a banner that said: “Leave the rooming list to me Deccie, you look after the team.” Kidding.

“This is my team! This is my country! I’m absolutely bloody well delighted! Is that good enough for you?”

Tom said it was, so that was sorted. He might have said there’s a fine line between cheerleading patriotism and mocking a coach whose track record suggested he deserved a little bit of civil regard, but never mind.

Time for a quick word with man of the match Seán O’Brien. The secret to Ireland’s success? “We worked our arses off,” he explained. Well, true enough.

Brent Pope, and the way he might look at you, then had us reaching for our palpitation pills. “People laughed at me when I said there’s a realistic chance Ireland could get to the final – and there is.”

Well, yes, beat Wales and England/France and it’ll be a case of “Mammy – More Smelling Salts Pls (+Tayto)”.

At which point we’ll just insert the ‘rooming list’ fella in Áras an Uachtaráin and be done with it.