Wood best hooker `by a street'

The aftermath of Saturday evening's win led to improbable thesis on whether or not Ireland would want to beat Australia next weekend. On RTE, Tom McGurk and the boys were offering the thinly veiled opinion that Warren Gatland would be much too clever to allow the euphoria of the American trouncing to prompt him to instruct his team to soundly beat the southern hemisphere side.

Since when did the matter of stuffing the Aussies become a matter of such trifling whimsy? Truth is that the potential quarter-final dilemma posed by our winning that match is one that we are never likely to have to concern ourselves with, even if God and country depended upon it.

Still, on blustery nights at Lansdowne Road, when cheeks are flushed and the whole of North America is on its knees, anything seems possible. As Keith Wood thundered over the line for his fourth try, it became clear that this hammering should have been billed as retribution for the Ryder Cup and the breach of etiquette that sparked heady talk of revolution in clubhouses all over Europe.

It would be nice to think that Phil Mickelson and Ben Crenshaw sat in horror watching the Ireland boys merrily stamping all over the American lines of concentration and even more sensitive parts of their anatomy. Comforting to think that the the troop of American Ryder Cup wives, apparently discernible only by their very blondness, sat (presumably en masse) gazing at Woody and Paddy Johns in full flight, perhaps yearning wistfully for a life with the more robust sportsman.

Because the truth is that the Americans would love Woody. They would dig his shaven head, high-five his blatant disregard for positional decorum and let rip every time he scored. Which, on Saturday night, was pretty often.

The build up to the match offered obscure little portents that Woody was bound to feature heavily in the proceedings. He cropped up on Breaking Ball to demonstrate his ability as a hurler, reliving his time soldiering for the Clare under-16s back when Tipperary and Cork did to Clare what Ireland did to the Americans.

Woody enthused about the essential truth of hurling - that there is no room for yellow streaks; to dive in takes courage, to stand back is to have your head taken off by a stray hurl. He was inclined to see a singular beauty in this inescapable choice of fates.

When asked about the choice of rugby over hurling, he just smiled mystically and quoted Robert Frost.

Now, there is absolutely no reason why prop forwards shouldn't quote poetry. Just don't expect to see it again for the rest of the World Cup. Wood, see, is a one off.

In general, the World Cup got off to a slow burning start. The early mismatches gave ample opportunity for the northern hemisphere teams to run up crazy scorelines through free-running, flashy rugby. Trouble is, there is no team that seems to be capable of that and the crowds knew, opting to sit out the preliminaries and leave the grounds half empty.

Thus, on ITV, Jim Rosenthal was left struggling to fill the lack of occasion with his own larger than life personality. As early as the build up to the England-Italy game, he was flagging, admitting that there was an "eerie atmosphere" around Twickenham.

By the Ireland game, he was positively crestfallen, pointlessly and a touch ominously observing that Joel Dume, the match official, was "one of those French referees."

At least Jim is still fronting the right events (although why, we will never know). Grandstand opened on Saturday morning with the celebrated jingle laced with a bit of techno and boasting a new, modernised collage of images.

The emphasis was on technique, the message being that whatever the Beeb does, it does well. The problem lies in what it is doing.

On a day when England are at Twickenham, you don't want to find yourself presenting "the hearty stuff of national hunt at Chepstow."

Yet that was the fate of Steve Rider, a front man who continues to prop up the ever sagging dignity to the BBC sporting schedule.

Donnington Park is not the stuff to attract mass audiences.

Football Focus has become the flagship and this week, England and Newcastle star Keiron Dyer demonstrated his acute understanding of the world soccer hierarchy. Blithely waving away his own performance in the European championships, Dyer revealed that "in my eyes, there are better teams than Luxembourg."

Prudent words. And in Jim Clarke's eyes, there are obviously better teams than Ireland. After his USA team wandered off to contemplate the first of many hammerings, their manager assessed Ireland's chances.

"Well, they should be making easy work of an amateur team," he shrugged.

His blunt assessment swept like an icy wind through the RTE studio but there was truth there. The Irish had after all been facing the likes of (substitute) David Nui (33), a teacher winning his sixth cap.

And there were some horrible moments; when Kevin Dalzell stole over for the USA's early try, the bleak thought that they would win the World Cup before we ever could struck home.

But we ended on a happy note. By the final whistle, RTE had observed in Keith Wood "the making of a national icon" while elsehwere, he was described as being "by a street among the best hooker in the world."

And who is to argue. The coming days will be strange. Normally, the days before an international against a global power are laden with heady talk of fighting wins. Now we are breezily hoping for a tame loss. It all makes for bad news. We can only win now, despite ourselves.