A prologue to history

If you find yourself being sucked into a black hole all of a sudden this Saturday, it's not that they've fixed the Large Hadron Collider: it will have originated at the Millennium Stadium.

Ordinarily, I don't get as worked up about rugby as about football. It's great when Ireland win and not so great when they lose, but it's not as if it matters that much. What's more important is that it's a good game.

But this weekend? With Ireland one win away from a second ever Grand Slam (the first for six decades), a first championship since 1985 and a just reward for one of the greatest Irish teams ever, in any sport? With Wales still in with a chance of a second consecutive Six Nations, still sore about losing their chance at another Slam, at home, pepped up by some residual Gatland bitterness? In the last game of the least aesthetically-pleasing Six Nationseses in years?

Man, it's going to be ugly.

So sod that for a game of soldiers: as much as I like the Welsh rugby team, here's to an Ireland win, no matter how.

In the spirit of wilful perversity, here are a couple of great Welsh moments from the past. Or more precisely, a couple of great Phil Bennett moments. The first is from 1977 against Scotland; the second is that try scored by the Barbarians against New Zealand in 1973 — finished off, of course, by Gareth Edwards, but begun by some Bennett trickery.




Why the Bennett stuff? Why, I've been listening to the Manics, of course. No other band could get Bennett, Steve Ovett, Shaun Ryder and Neil Kinnock into the same song. Nicky Wire: you may be a Spurs fan, but I salute you.