The inimitable Colm Meaney plays an ego-addled detective obsessed by celtic mysticism and Colin Farrell plays a petty criminal one step behind the law. Farrell and Meaney meet in the 'jacks', words are exchanged and Meaney decides that retribution is required. He grabs hold of Farrell, stands him up, undoes his own fly and proceeds to urinate on him. The urinatee is either afraid or powerless to do anything as Meaney growls "stay where you are and take your scolding".

Meaney continues to talk and Farrell thinks that the humiliation is over and goes to walk away, until Meaney says:

"Ah ah, hang on till I shake."

Let's not mince our words, England were pissed on from a height. The humiliation seemed complete as Ireland cleared their bench but they had to wait for 'the shake' as Boss sickened them with his last-minute intercept. O'Sullivan did not hold back and was only short of sending Willie Bennett, Ireland's masseur, on to the field.

Willie was masseur during my time in the squad and has great hands, better hands than Andy Farrell. At 50-plus the English wouldn't have troubled him.

It's hard to put a clinical perspective on a turkey-shoot. When I sat down to watch the match on Wednesday night I did so on the basis that I couldn't have been arsed analysing it. I just sat down and enjoyed it. There were a few points worth deliberating on.

The English game is in disarray. In general, English people are of sound intelligence. However they are inclined to make rash judgments, particularly in relation to their soccer and cricket teams and the selection of coaching, management and playing personnel. More latterly this disease has afflicted their rugby union side.

Andy Farrell was picked to play at inside centre for England against Scotland in the Six Nations opener. During his league career he played mainly as the loose forward, sometimes in the second row and occasionally as a prop.

After major surgery on his knees, spinal discs and his toe the RFU paid £1 million to bring him to rugby union. After nine games in the Premiership, which is the best league in the world remember (a bloke from Sky told me that), where he played mostly as a blind side wing-forward Brian Ashton chooses to play him against the two best centres in the world.

After the match, the English press threw the book at him, then subsequently some of them said that he did not play that badly. I would agree with the latter sentiment. For a blindside wing forward playing out of position in the centre, he played to his ability. What the hell were the English thinking? Frano - you're a decent second row and you've played at the highest level so we're going to buy you for $40 million and we're going to play you at quarter-back for the Indianapolis Colts. In the Superbowl.

I would be pretty certain that in a 40metre sprint the only players in the Irish pack who would lose to Andy Farrell would be Rory Best and John Hayes, and even then not by much. Farrell was so slow that Ireland's midfield drifted off him all day. They weren't remotely concerned about him cutting back inside.

One of the forwards could deal with him.

If it had been a dry day and Gordon D'Arcy received three or four balls to run onto, Andy Farrell would have been sitting down beside Colin Farrell saying, "yeah mate, I know how you feel."

I have this theory that the RFU are going to try and buy all the best rugby league players and convert them to union to try and turn league into an even bigger dead duck than it already is.

It's not working.

England's 2003 team was buttressed by outstanding and fearsome personalities who brought them through the toughest battles - Johnson, Dallaglio, Hill, Greenwood, Back, Dawson, Wilkinson. Last Saturday England had two leaders. The admirable Corry, though hamstrung by lack of talent, left nothing behind in effort, and the bewildered Wilkinson who was just hamstrung.

Retrospective reassessment of Wilkinson's abilities and importance are not really called for, but his and Corry's leadership skills were stretched and stressed to the limit.

Deacon, Freshwater, Lund, Worsley, Farrell and Morgan were toy soldiers.

Even the dependable Vickery was a shadow of his former self. When a skinny whelp with a new romantic haircut is England's best player you gotta start asking questions.

How many Englishmen would get on the current Irish XV? You could possibly make a case for Lewsey over Dempsey but there would be a hell of an argument. If a Lions test team was picked today there would be no Scots, no Welsh and conceivably no English players in it. If I'm wrong tell me.

If I was Brian Ashton I'd be quietly ringing Lawrence Dallaglio and Mike Catt saying: "Sticky patch chaps. I need caps, leadership and ideas." No matter what Dallaglio's form is like, the 33-yearold would never have let some of the indignities which occurred on Saturday happen on his watch. Never.

Ireland's leaders are manifest. Anybody with over 50 caps is irrespective of their status a leader. Ireland have seven leaders in their side - O'Connell and Easterby up front, Stringer and O'Gara inside and O'Driscoll, Hickie and Horgan on the outside. Our two wingers have been key performers - Hickie is less vocal than Horgan but his perception and intellect are absolutely vital. Hickie is at his best when he goes looking for the ball. Quite often his role as auxiliary scrum-half is under-estimated and players respond to him when he cuts the line.

If I'm around in 30 years' time and a grandchild asks who most encapsulated the ethos of the great team of the midnoughties, I will look no further than Shane Horgan. Sometimes punters class a winger as a finisher. The archetypal finisher normally has blonde hair, a tan and enough pace to close off a threequarter line movement without a hand being laid on them. Finishers normally can't tackle a fish supper and are usually away doing same when a bomb goes up to them.

Horgan has 19 test tries to his credit.

He is the best finisher in world rugby, not someone who rounds off a move with the cover beaten.

Cast your mind back to Twickenham last year, nobody in world rugby would have scored that try other than Shane Horgan. He showed magnificent spatial awareness to appreciate where the touch-line and the try-line was, he had the peripheral vision to see tacklers coming in from behind and from the side, and he had the ability to use his body to withstand the contact and stay in the field of play while stretching every sinew to ensure the ball was grounded legally an inch over the line. It was special, particularly when it would have been far easier to be tackled into touch.

This distinguishes him from mere mortals in the number 11 or 14 shirts.

All 82,000 people would just about have forgiven him if he had knocked the ball on going over the line from O'Gara's synchronous punt. That was Josh Lewsey underneath him and Lewsey is a formidable competitor. Horgan had to time his jump correctly, go early to secure aerial ascendancy over his opponent, give himself enough hang time and get his arms out to catch as he collided with his opposite number. He just doesn't let them go. The guy is world class and his leadership is key to all those around him.

'The Leader' had the best moment of the match. D'Arcy got all the credit for the lead-up to Dempsey's try with his skilful back-flick, but O'Driscoll had to come-in, bend down and scoop a slippy ball at 75% pace and throw out a perfectly-weighted long pass straight into the bread basket off his left hand. There is a far superior skill quotient in that manoeuvre. The one weakness in O'Driscoll's armoury has been his passing. But somebody has done some work with him because his passing and distribution against England were sublime.

Indeed, Ireland's skill levels in the conditions were stunning and Ireland were only at 80 per cent.

In conclusion, I have to say that I have never seen a better performance from an Irish back row. Ever. They owned the pitch.

Fógra: I thought RTE's coverage of the event was excellent. It attracted an audience of 1.2 million viewers - truly staggering numbers. It's beyond belief that they should choose to broadcast extended highlights on Sunday night at a quarter to midnight ending at a quarter to one.

OK, they had GAA highlights at 8pm but Entrapment and Trouble in Paradise?

Over on RTE 1 they had ER, Would You Believe (no I wouldn't) and The Week in Politics. Trom agus Éadrom anyone? Cop on lads.

Fógra eile: I travel to Edinburgh next week to watch Ireland empty Scotland courtesy of Ryanair. The cost of this puddle hop is Euro406.35. Yes indeed, for great sporting occasions, Ryanair: The Up the Bum Airline.