Years ago a friend of mine was in Riyadh on business. He was having lunch with his clients when suddenly the street he was on drained off as people ran onto the adjacent square in animated form. One of the party entreated him to, "Come see our justice working." Unaware of what was about to unfold he followed them into the square. An execution was about to take place . . . he was transfixed by the ad hoc nature of it all. My friend witnessed the event unable to walk away, he at least was a good distance off. His description of the event was short on gore, long on metaphor, what sickened him was not the sight or sound of blade through bone but the preamble and the sense of bathos once the deed was done.

There were prayers said, but recited at the same speed as those at a Sunday mass before the big match. The poor unfortunate was proffered and de-robed. A sense of agitation as an unexplained delay set-in. An introduction to the executioner who immediately brandished a crescent shaped scimitar . . . all the while this poor mute just sat there awaiting his fate. There were waves of rising excitement running through the square, another cat-called delay as the sentence and punishment was read out. No last requests.

At this juncture there were rhythmic expressions of demand for the act as fever pitch hit.

The executioner arched his back and followed through. The shrieks at the top of the back-swing were dreadful (I was surprised nobody said "get in the hole, ball") and seconds later . . . silence. The crowd departed in seconds, not minutes, all going back to sell coffee or check their emails. The change observed was baying hysteria to serene tranquillity in moments as the mundane consumed everything previous.

There are striking similarities in sport. A sporting execution is no less tasteful. Andy Robinson was dispatched last Wednesday. He was coach to a team short of quality, skill and character. When he really needed them to produce a performance above ordinariness they emphatically failed him. He had to wait a good deal longer than our other friend. It was no less unpleasant. Whispers turned to Beagle-like baying as Fleet Street, Twickenham, Sky Sports, former England greats, the 57 farts and parliamentary public houses got involved . . . what an ungodly concoction decided Robinsons' fate.

They were right though, he was a crap head coach, good assistant but not a main man. When a coach says something like "I'm not a quitter" or something similar, it means he has already been on to his lawyer to initiate a severance package. It certainly made it interesting that the RFU were prepared to compensate Robinson to quit rather than hold out for better terms . . . push or jump, he gets the same package. Anyway it's all done, he had a broadside at the RFU and then limped off to lodge £300,000 into his bank account and wait for Earth Titans or the Pertemps B's to give him a call.

So now that same ghostly silence of a postexecution descends. The villain is gone and everyone from Sky Sports to Fleet Street put their megaphones away and shuffled back to normality after the excitement.

The execution and its surrounding excitement has solved nothing. The problem has only started. Rob Andrew, clever fellow that he is, wouldn't go near the coaching job, the Svengland job now is almost as poisonous as the soccer post only the incumbent wouldn't be getting a sniff of a £4m salary.

It's an impossible problem to solve, the RFU need a quarter of a billion sterling to buy out every sugar daddy who owns a Premiership club, centrally contract all the English players and throw out every South African, Australian, Kiwi, Tongan, Samoan and Fijian free-loader who are milking the Premiership system. The inequity of supporting all those non-qualified players must gall them. It leaves them with a perilously shallow pool of quality players.

The only surprise is that their structures hadn't collapsed a year or two before this. Even if they had the balls or initiative to undertake the project it would take 5 to 10 years for the fruits of their labours to manifest itself. It's great, England will be weak from the short to the indefinite term, irrespective of which coach they put in.

France too are in awful trouble. Putting Bernard Laporte in charge of the French national side is akin to making Rolf Harris the curator of the Louvre. He has picked up two grand slams . . . but if Eddie O'Sullivan had been in charge they would have picked up six. He has made a dreadful shambles of the job. It seems the gobshites in charge of picking coaches in the FFR are as awful as the gobshites picking coaches in the RFU. Everything from over-training to God-awful individual or combination selection has been foisted on this French side. They are unlikely to recover in the short term, but typically they could be one master stroke away from defibrillation.

To my mind the best out-half in the world six or seven years ago was Tomas Castaignede. He could do anything . . . brilliantly.

Wonderful hands and high intelligence, he ran brilliant lines and was quirkily unpredictable.

He tore his Achilles tendon, spent a couple of years in the wilderness after joining SarahJanes, was put in the centre inexplicably and recently ended up as a full-back before he got injured again. The French nation looks on as they yearn for World Cup success. Laporte knows that he can't trust Freddy Michalak. Damian Traille knows that he can't trust Laporte and he probably wonders why Florian Fritz is occupying his place at inside centre.

The French media have started the campaign already, one man surely can't change everything. Maybe not, but by a process of forced deduction or elimination Laporte will suddenly see that Castaignede is the man he has missed all along, if he stays injury free and is selected he could be the most important man in France and a player who could dent the lofty ambitions of Eddie O'Sullivan.

What about Fast Eddie? Is he lucky or is he just good? He is lucky in the sense that he has a squad of well-above-average players in every respect. He is equally lucky in relation to this year's championship that England and France are in disarray. Everything else is just good.

I have never seen an Irish side bully and physically impose themselves on a Southern hemisphere side as they did in November.

And did it for 80-plus minutes. I have never seen a side play a tactically replete and intellectually complete game as they did against Australia. I have never seen a side make as few mistakes as they did, given the intensity of the exchanges and the weather conditions. That said they should have scored more tries.

It is no mistake that Ireland play the requisite game to counter and beat their opponents and that the team have the confidence and mental toughness to carry it out.

I do not doubt that Ireland could go to South Africa or Australia right now and win.

It is the corollary of the test series wins in Dublin. "Ah yes but could they do it down there?" Indubitably.

It is a tricky managerial task to keep a pot on the boil for even two months without some of the good karma evaporating into the atmosphere. Why is it that Eddie's players don't get injured while Robinson's squad looked like a M.A.S.H. in Basra. Is he lucky or is he just good. Can he keep them going for 10 months.

One thing I do know is that O'Sullivan's contract is up after the World Cup. I just can't help feeling that he will be around up to 2011 or that he will go on his own terms. To my knowledge he has never been sacked as a coach and his departure anywhere has always been to go further and higher up the ladder. He can never be that complacent to look over the water and watch unaffected as one of his kind is humiliated and cast adrift. A coach is sometimes only a couple of bad results away from losing his head, O'Sullivan though will be walking in a scimitar-free zone for some time to come.