I’ve never been more proud to be Irish than during the playing of “God Save the Queen” yesterday.

I shed tears with Gerry Flannery, and other members of the Irish team, during the playing of the Irish National Anthem.

I looked into the eyes of the men in green as the score was 6-3 to Ireland, and I knew they were going to rip the heart out of the English.

I wrote a text message to my brother David predicting a ‘riot’

- a Freudian slip, I meant a ‘rout’, Ireland to score 50 points. I sent it as O’Gara’s third penalty sailed over and the score became 9-3.

I’m afraid that NFL scouts were at the match and now have plans to lure Shane Horgan over to their code.

(In case you are confused by the last sentence: NFL means American Football; Shane Horgan received a ball from O’Gara and scored in the most poetic score I’ve ever seen on a rugby pitch… Ok, I know it wasn’t on a rugby pitch… but you must know what I mean if you saw even the highlights of the match… anyway I owe a debt to that great writer of American Football stories: J L Pagano… and it’s payback time these days.)

The RTE coverage was great.

Hook was brilliant. Over on Sky 143 (BBC coverage) Jeremy Guscott’s face was a picture of a man who now knows that England haven’t a hope in hell of making any impression on the Rugby World Cup : I’ve never seen such a defeated pundit.

My only regret is that I missed Keith Wood’s response to the final score. He was on BBC and I couldn’t break off from George Hook. By the time I got to Wood, he’d composed himself and was back in control demonstrating that even an Irishman was capable of understatement.

(A long time ago I wrote a blog post after reading a few pages of George Hook’s autobiography. I was completely taken with the book… I went on to finish it… and was even more taken with the man… I went on to tune into him on Newstalk (an Irish Radio station that goes out late afternoon, Monday to Friday)… and finally last week I sent my first ever text to a Radio Programme after hearing Hook apologise to someone for interrupting them. (H. is such a genuine man… the universe put him through a shit-load of trouble in order to bring this out in him… we are fortunate to have such a voice and heart available to us… in my opinion…)

Oh, that was an afternoon, that was,
the day the GAA won for Ireland,
the hour that Wallace ruled
O’Connell soared, Leamy speared and Horgan too.
that was a sweeter sound
than generations of green warriors
marching to the tune of history.
that was the sweetest sound
as Irish tries reigned down on England’s crown
the round ball of Ireland smiled from the touchline
on her children, and her children’s children
the GAA had won for Ireland
every rugby player walked that truth
that day.