an earnest discussion at half-time about whether “Wales [were] one of those teams who would drag you out to sea and then drown you” or not

You clearly missed the news reports of the terrible post-match atrocity, in which Wales did in fact drag Ireland out to sea and drown them. Horrendous news, but I for one am glad at least that this sterling Irish side knew the joy of a grand slam victory before their hideous and untimely end.

They’ll still beat England next year, mind.

Watched the match in a half-decent Oirish pub in the otherwise horrifying Düsseldorf Altstadt. I think the intermittent roars did actual structural damage to the walls. In the silence before Jones’s final kick I could hear the timbers creaking. Then he missed, the crowd erupted and the ceiling collapsed. Cheering, laughing, singing and shouts for another round. Big bearded young fellow in front of me in the Ireland away strip—looked like he plays at loosehead, or possibly loose and tighthead simultaneously—was weeping openly with no shame at all. Best of all, the German friends we’d taken along to watch, who’d never seen a match before and were intensely sceptical before kickoff, were captivated by full time.

I listened to the RTE radio commentary and some of the conventionalized metaphors made it wonderful, but half-incomprehensible. There was an earnest discussion at half-time about whether “Wales [were] one of those teams who would drag you out to sea and then drown you” or not. The consensus seemed to be that on the whole they were not, and I suppose it must have been confirmed by events.