The one labelled, with splendid handwashing insouciance, Probably untrue, but interesting nonethelessf The one in which a shopping list of supposed inside-track rumours about what has and hasn't been going on behind the closed doors of the Irish rugby squad was passed around like an electronic Chinese whisper. Since it found its way to my inbox from four different senders . . . none of whom know each other and only one of whom has ever kicked a rugby ball in his life . . . chances are its reach has been fairly widespread.

Chances are too that if you're reading this, you probably know or have heard at least bits of what it contains.

If you don't, there's no need to feel overly left out. After Friday night, it doesn't much matter whether some, none or all of the rumours are true. When your house has burnt down, it's not important what the garden fence gossip was before the fire started.

What's actually of more interest is the fact that the list was out there at all, that it got forwarded to so many people and that it was so eagerly received. That, in short, the public was so taken with what would prove to be the imminent failure of the Irish rugby team that it gleefully passed around a list like it even though nobody knew if there was a shred of truth to any of it.

It's all of a piece really with the general illfeeling that's been bubbling since before the start of the tournament. Ever since Shane Horgan hobbled away from that wretched afternoon in Murrayfield . . . and how long ago that seems now . . . the public mood around Ireland's World Cup has sunk to a level unimaginable late last year when Australia and South Africa were being beaten in Lansdowne Road. On the train back into Paris from the stadium on Friday night, there were plenty of face-painted revellers standing on the seats singing Molly Malone but there were just as many folk sitting grim-jawed and quiet. "We were duped, " said one of them bitterly. "This was supposed to be a thing of the past, " said another.

Irish teams have lost before and in every way imaginable. They've lost World Cup games bravely and they've lost them timidly;

they've come within minutes of beating the eventual world champions and been embarrassed and embarrassing in failing against nohopers. (That Argentinian rugby was subsequently given hope by that win back in 1999 and has gone on to build on it with massive success was a consequence few saw coming that night in Lens. But that's next Sunday's problem. ) The difference now, though, is that the more popular rugby has become in Ireland, the more opinions people have about it and its players. Folk who couldn't tell you with absolute certainty the respective numbers on the backs of the loosehead and tighthead props will shake their head gravely at the mention of John Hayes' scrummaging technique just because they heard Hooky go on about it a few times on the telly. They might not necessarily be able to spot an offside without the help of a replay but they know what they like and it isn't the predictability of a Girvan Dempsey kick-and-chase, no sirree.

To be fair, that's the fun of sport and it's all harmless enough in its own way. But the mood change towards the Irish team over the past month or so has been more pointed and more severe than just that. There's been some good old-fashioned begrudgery thrown into the mix as well. Some texts came in to Newstalk's Off The Ball programme last week to the effect that the pampered prima-donnas in the Irish squad should spend a bit more time working on their game and a bit less starring in ads for sports drinks. As if (a) they were filming the damn things during the tournament (as one eejit seemed to suggest) and (b) rugby players made anything like the money their soccer brethren rake in and so shouldn't need to do ads.

It's sad that it's come to this. For a while there, it looked like the rugby team was going to be one the public would take pleasure in attaching itself to. People who'd long given up on some of the soccer team liked that they could walk into Tower Records of a quiet Tuesday afternoon and see Dennis Hickie browsing through the CDs or could find themselves behind Ronan O'Gara in the queue at their local Spar. But that was way back when we were going to make a stab at winning the World Cup.

Those two wins last year, sandwiched as they were between three Triple Crowns in four years, gave rise to expectation and when it looked like it wasn't going to be lived up to, the Irish public turned base and tawdry and just a little ugly. Which, in its own way, was probably every bit as inevitable as the failure to live up to those expectations. It's just a shame that we couldn't have been a little more generous about it all.