Woe in the big house

Our credentials as an Irish blogger would be somewhat imperilled without a word or two about Sunday's defeat in le match de rugby at Croke Park. Which is as a good a time as any to bring the blog up to about, say, 2003 in the blogging world -- with photos. Hence, this excellent photo of the spectacle all the way up to the nosebleed seats --


(REUTERS/Charles Platiau; caption)

But, if only in the way that anything after the fact can be interpreted as an omen, it didn't seem promising that the rendition of the French anthem was at least as thumping and rousing as the two Irish ones, setting the stage for --


(REUTERS/Patrick Bolger; caption)

Anyway, we suspect that 2 weeks is long enough to allow the spice of England's visit to build despite the deflation of yesterday.