When you consider that only a few weeks ago pundits were predicting in certain quarters that we could reach the World Cup semi-final or even the final itself and then contrast that with the reality of our three performances to date, we have become world class at the art of deluding ourselves.

And that's the reality. Now there's a word that won't sit too easy around the IRFU when they consider the four-year contract bestowed on coach Eddie O'Sullivan as the plane taxied off to France. Obviously, they too believed the pre-publicity and now may find themselves with a lame-duck leader who would cost millions to buy out of his contract in the unlikely scenario they found the inner fortitude to replace him.

Yes, it is a morning for cold serving of French omelette all around the rugby table as we look at the ineptitude which has destroyed the nation's hopes around this potentially great rugby squad.

The Ireland supporters were asked to buy into a mirage at last November's victories over under-strength Australian and South African teams in Lansdowne Road and accept that we were in fact a real world power.

We then ignored the formlines . . . both Leinster and Munster limping out of the Heineken Cup without a whimper; the two tests in Argentina where we felt we were too good to develop the squad and instead sent a second string to the slaughter; and the disastrous build-up for the World Cup via Scotland, Italy, Bayonne and the mighty pygmies Namibia and Georgia where the common thread was out-of-sort performances.

The old cliche that form is temporary while class is permanent has a relevance in all this. Even good players are entitled to hit a dip in form, but the good coach has a Plan B when that happens because he has developed a keen sense of rivalry within the squad. Unfortunately that has not happened in the Ireland set-up where O'Sullivan failed to provide proper playing time for understudies such as Eoin Reddan, Paddy Wallace and Alan Quinlan and jettisoned the undoubted talents of Geordan Murphy for the tried and trusted which appeals more to his instincts.

In other words, the coach gambled that his small pool of first teamers wouldn't hit a patch of bad form or injury and is now paying the cost by an almost certain early homecoming next Sunday night.

Is it innocence, ignorance, arrogance or a combination of all three that against the French on Friday night we had a bench of unused and unusable backs while Geordan Murphy, Denis Hickie and Peter Stringer sat in civvy uniform, unwanted and unneeded by a leader far too conservative to ever dare to win beyond a joined-up thinking approach?

If Plan A doesn't work, then let's revert to Plan A has been the gameplan which has sold this Golden Generation short.

If Paul O'Connell or Ronan O'Gara . . . two heroic Irish servants . . . have failed to sparkle, we should have had two readymade replacements to go in and do the job while they found their feet again. Unfortunately both had to endure a night of horror on Friday without even the remotest chance that someone could come into their position and lift the team.

We sold out on that principle years ago to get good results in far less meaningful surroundings like autumn internationals.

And now the chickens, or maybe that should be les coquerels, have come home to roost.