Pundits ignore the hype for a whale of a hammering

Philip Reid TV ViewAh, they may laugh. Shane Byrne's mullet came in for light-hearted teasing in the BBC studio - not least from happy hooker Keith Wood, who has little need of a coiffeur's touch and who has settled nicely into the pundit's seat - as Ireland's runaway win over Wales put paid to all the pre-match hype of a close encounter of some kind.

Indeed, the BBC's build-up was focused around this being the big match of the weekend, the only one capable of producing a tight game, with France and England having done what they had to do to claim large wins the day before.

But, hey, things don't always go as anticipated.

In fact, we should have known from the predictions of our studio experts.

In the RTÉ studio, Tom McGurk asked George Hook, Brent Pope and Conor O'Shea in turn who would win. Answer? "Irish win." "Ireland." "Ireland."

To which McGurk could simply respond, "Okay, for once it's unanimous."

Okay then, maybe some different views on the Beeb? Nope. John Inverdale posed the same question to Wood and Sean Fitzpatrick.

"Ireland to win by five," insisted the bald one.

"Ireland," said Fitzpatrick without hesitation.

Ahem, so what was all this talk of a close game?

The tone for what lay ahead had been set in the RTÉ studio on Saturday evening when, wisely, after England's crushing win over Scotland, post-match analysis was kept short and instead Pope - who took the opportunity to plug his new book, aptly called Woody, a Whale of a Tail, about a whale (who looks not unlike Keith Wood) who gets sunburn, with all proceeds going to Children's Hospice Home Care - and Ciarán Fitzgerald suggested Ireland would be too strong for the Welsh.

Yesterday, in the build-up to the match, we got a clearer indications why Ireland would prove too good for a Welsh team described by Hook as "like champagne and high heels, (you) have to pay for it". He went on to suggest the Welsh would pay for it up front where they would be unable to compete.

As Inverdale put it on the BBC in hyping up the match, the Welsh were a team that were all about "style and panache".

Which wasn't exactly how Brian O'Driscoll put it in his pre-match interview when he described the Welsh as "controlled chaos . . . you've wingers popping up in the (number) 10 spot and props out on the wings . . . they seem to know what they are doing but no one else does."

Back on RTÉ, Pope was making the point that Wales were not as good as people were making them out to be, and he seemed more concerned that his fellow-pundit Hook was gushing about Ireland's prospects rather than bringing any portents of doom to the table chat.

"George is so positive it's dangerous," said a worried Pope, before suggesting Ireland would "strangle the life out of them".

Which was a view shared by O'Shea: "I do think we'll strangle the living daylights out of them."

We just hoped the pair were speaking metaphorically.

On the Beeb, Inverdale wasn't taking too much notice of the fact that his two studio guests had each plumped for an Ireland win and was telling us that this was a game "which is almost impossible" to call . . . although the match commentators were well and truly disillusioned with such pre-match hyperbole as the match progressed.

As commentator Nick Mullins observed, "Wales have none of the effervescence of a week ago", which was a timely observation given Ronan O'Gara crossed shortly after for Ireland's third try. This led him to suggest that Wales's hopes were "evaporating in the cold Dublin air".

By half-time, with the match all but won, Wood was telling us that the Welsh confidence was "flaky", and, in the RTÉ studio, Hook was wondering why Gordon D'Arcy was playing in the centre.

"Why do you put the quickest, smartest, most elusive player" in midfield?

McGurk wasn't the only one a bit confused by all of this, because the pundits were agreeing that the D'Arcy-O'Driscoll partnership was working - you could hardly deny it after a first half that yielded four tries.

The only one not getting the feel-good factor was poor old Jonathan Davies, who was co-commentating with Mullins.

"The reason why Wales came out so early for the second half," he told us, "was because they wanted to play with some ball . . . they haven't seen much of it in the first half."

The feel-good factor, though, was still present in the RTÉ studio by game's end, with Pope reaffirming his view that Wales were "overrated".

In fact, they were well and truly burned . . . a bit like the whale in his tale.