Inside Track: Aviva witnesses another downer for our nearest neighbours

They must be loving us over in England...mar dhea. First of all, the horses trained here cleanrf up at Cheltenham and then last Saturday, the Red Rose is in opposition as our rugby team clinches every title the game has to offer on this side of the world.

What next? Victory in soccer’s World Cup, beating the other England jersey along the way, the one with the Three Lions as its crest? Or maybe before then, Andy Farrell’s crew repeating Saturday’s dose in the other World Cup, this one coming up in the second half of this year?

Last week's scoreline had the teams well apart, but it wasn’t by any means the best of Ireland’s wins in the competition. They were very slow to get started, and had England finished with a full squad instead of being two down there’s no knowing how it would have gone.

But better to win ugly than finish gallant losers. It was one of five wins in a campaign that yielded several prizes, the Grand Slam chief among them. This title had landed here just three times previously, clinched for the first time in Dublin but not on Irish soil, as had been said on a few occasions in the lead up to Saturday.

The last of four wins in 1948 – Italy wasn’t part of the set-up at the time – was a 6-3 defeat of Wales, and it came in Belfast’s Ravenhill. On the team was a proud son of County Louth, Annagassan’s Colm Callan, who played at lock and had among his colleagues legends of the Irish game, Jackie Kyle and Karl Mullen.  

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There’s a couple of others with solid Wee County connections who have also tasted Grand Slam glory, one of them also born here.

That, of course, is Rob Kearney, arguably the county’s greatest sportsman who has the rare distinction of having figured on both winning Grand Slam teams of this century, in 2009 and 2018. The 2011 European player-of-the-year is now a pundit with Virgin Media Sport.

We like to lay claim on Devin Toner out in Bellurgan. It’s an area well known to his father, Peter, but so, too, is Carlingford. Almost certainly the tallest, at 6’ 10”, to have played for Ireland and maybe any other international side, Toner was aboard for the 2018 Grand Slam.    

A long-time colleague of both ‘Louth’ players, Johnny Sexton had a lot of the attention focused on him on Saturday. Would he break the Six Nations scoring record? Would he lead Ireland to victory on his final appearance at The Aviva?

He did both, and although 37 years of age, is now planning to lead Ireland into the World Cup to be played in France, beginning in September.

One of Ireland’s tries came by the scrum doing the donkey work, almost pushing England the whole way over the line. In one of the dark days of many years ago, when Ireland wasn’t a match for anyone, I can remember England doing the exact same at Twickenham on their way to a rout.  

We don’t expect it to happen now, or in any time in the near future.