Ireland went out in Rome today and played quite well. They didn’t play as well as they could have, but they were still quite good – against an Italian team who played really well, by their own standards – and they won by a margin of 29 points… Italy 9 – 38 Ireland. I was following it live on RTE and on Twitter.

Some of the most entertaining stuff of the day, however, was produced by the Irish commentary and analysis teams… such as:

Ryle Nugent (during the match): “it’s made all the harder now that Ireland are now down to ten men…” (after Ronan O’Gara was sent to the sin bin – they were down to 14 men, not 10 – it’s rugby, not soccer).

George Hook (after the match ended): “If [Ireland] say ‘we knew Italy would be hard to beat’, I’ll vomit on my Jaffa Cakes.”

Tom McGuirk (post match analysis): “We could be analysing every scrum since Adam grabbed Eve…”

What are they trying to do… compete with Hamilton, Giles, Dunphy and Billo for comedy value? If so… fair enough! Keep it up, lads, I say