What's plentiful is taken for granted. Or words to that effect. We've seen all this before, and while it's always nice to see a bit of silverware fluttering in the sunlight, this time, with no lap of honour to be seen, you really had to wonder if the players were convinced about the feat themselves.

The contrast with the scene at Lansdowne Road three years ago was marked.

Scotland were in town that day, the one obstacle standing before Ireland and a first Triple Crown in nine years.

Michael Kiernan's late dropgoal against England in 1985 was relived over and over again in all forms of media in the build-up to the game. Ciaran Fitzgerald's famous words during that game was the most quoted phrase of the week in our newspapers.

Everybody was a little giddy.

When Ireland finally batted aside a stubborn Scottish effort on the day in question to seal the triumph, the players toured the four corners of Lansdowne with a joyous innocence in their eyes. They were virgins at this kind of thing. Everything felt wonderful.

Just like it was back in 1982.

No Irish team had managed to overturn the triumvirate of nations from across the water since 1949. A gap of thirtythree years, half a lifetime for many people. And a difficult lifetime at that.

It was hard to reconcile what that season meant to people. When Ginger McLoughlin pulled the rest of the Irish pack over the line at Twickenham that season, the abiding memory of most players was the sheer amount of Irish in London who thanked them sincerely for making the thought of their week in work alongside the English a little easier. And when Ollie Campbell kicked six penalties and landed a drop-goal to beat Scotland on Triple Crown day, it allowed them more bragging rights. A rare treat.

And what did it mean back in 1894, the date of Ireland's first ever Triple Crown success? It meant so much to the IRFU that they even considered giving special presentations to the players who played in all three games.

Never mind that they eventually decided not to proceed with the awards because of worries that the union's amateur status might be violated, at least they thought about it.

It was a year when Ireland, for the first time, played eight forwards instead of nine but their principal tactic was still the good old foot rush. Kick ahead, any head, as the saying goes. They sealed their pact with history at the Ormeau Grounds in Belfast, on a pitch that had an overflow from the Lagan for company. In a mud bath, a John Lytle penalty edged Ireland past Wales and after that the merriment began.

Back then a Triple Crown represented the full bag of chips, but once France decided that yes, they would actually like to take part in this Championship on a regular basis, the honour became something a little less, a bag with a few chips already taken out. The introduction of Italy to the competition has eaten away at the Triple Crown's worth even further.

It's now something you can attach to your name for winning three out of five games in the Six Nations. It's like getting 60% in an exam and being feted to the high heavens for it. Its relevance, not only because of the increased size of the Six Nations Championship, but also because of the advent of the World Cup in 1987, is now almost entirely negligible. The only thing the Triple Crown had going for it from an Irish point of view was that we never really won it that often. Now we're beginning to fall in line with the rest of its participants.

England, with 23 Triple Crown successes to their name, stopped celebrating the feat years ago. Even Wales, who are not exactly the type of people to be quiet about any sort of rugby achievement, don't boast too much about their collection of 17. The Scots, meanwhile, have collected ten Triple Crowns over the years, and you get the feeling that number 11 would hardly lift the domestic game from the rut it's now in.

So yesterday, as they almost fell over themselves to get to the dressing rooms lest anybody in the ground thought they were going to do a circuit of Murrayfield, you got the feeling that Ireland have copped onto the fact that in modern rugby, the Triple Crown doesn't mean all that much. But you do have to feel a little sorry for the Irish players. They've become victims of their own success to an extent, so much so that something that was a clear achievement back in 2004, means close to nothing now, three years down the track.

In the future what would be rare and wonderful for Ireland is a Grand Slam.